ABSTRACT
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) have become a popular type of conservation scheme in the world. It is a useful tool to make people aware of the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as their funding. Agriculture and forestry areas have been a major target for subsidies and grants from central and local governments in Japan. The governments implemented several environmental programs in order to preserve and enhance ecosystem services from agriculture and forests. Most of the environmental programs – for example, an environmental payment program, a forest environmental tax, and a rice terrace partnership program – have the characteristic of being PES or quasi-PES. In this chapter, the conservation of terraced paddy fields (rice terrace) and the related conservation programs, such as the direct payment program and the urban-rural partnership program, are selected for case studies of environmental valuation and its benefit transfer.
