‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

So how can we enlist eco-service trading to generate net positive gain?
We can start by making distinctions between what we can call ‘eco-service’ credit schemes as opposed 
to ‘emissions trading’ schemes. An eco-service can be said to refer to a 
positive
service of nature, as 
opposed to a pollutant caused by human systems. CO
2
could be seen as an emission to be ‘reduced’ 

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Eco-service Trading Schemes
because, again at the scale it is being absorbed into the atmosphere and oceans, it threatens the world’s 
ecosystems and ultimately humans. However, CO
2
sequestration
is a ‘surrogate’ for a positive eco-
service ordinarily provided by nature: that of a stable climate. Traditional emissions trading systems 
‘rewarded’ industry for reducing pollution. In contrast, eco-service credit systems could reward 
industry for creating 
positive
ecological impacts. Thus, for example, trees play an essential role in 
natural cycles, so increasing the total area of healthy ‘native’ forests creates a more stable climate.
Reducing the rate of forest clearing or turning native forests into plantations does 
not
create a more 
stable climate. So again, if we want a ‘balance’ between conservation and development, it would mean 
at least restoring the ecologically-suitable tree cover that existed several hundred years ago. A more 
practical approach might be eco-service credit systems that ‘over-compensate’ for existing ecological 
problems by value-adding to the ecology. Ironically, carbon trading systems are being used to justify 
new sources of fossil fuel energy. Instead of just mitigating the harm new projects will do (ie just 
reducing 
future
CO
2
emissions), then, we need to compensate for the harm that excess CO
2
in the 
air and oceans is already doing. Cities could begin to play the role of the forests they replaced, but 
not by adding ‘mechanical trees’.