<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Sell, J.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Koellner, T.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Weber, O.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedroni, L.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Scholz, R. W.</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Decision criteria of European and Latin American market actors for tropical forestry projects providing environmental services</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Ecological EconomicsEcological Economics</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006</style></year></dates><volume><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">58</style></volume><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">17-36</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Converting the environmental services of tropical forests from public goods to tradable services is a promising approach&lt;br/&gt;to sustaining tropical forests’ ecosystem functions and services. We hypothesize that the development of markets for these&lt;br/&gt;environmental services will substantially depend on compliance with requirements of key market actors representing supply&lt;br/&gt;and demand sides. This paper analyzes market actors’ decision criteria related to engagement in tropical forestry projects&lt;br/&gt;that provide environmental services. In a questionnaire survey, 45 experts from Latin America and Europe representing key&lt;br/&gt;market actor groups, i.e., certifiers, consulting companies, financial institutions, governmental organizations, industrial&lt;br/&gt;companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), were asked to name and weight criteria that tropical forestry&lt;br/&gt;projects should meet in order to attract their institution’s engagement. Many of these 45 institutions are already involved in&lt;br/&gt;several market activities related to tropical forestry projects and environmental services, including asset management,&lt;br/&gt;certification, consultancy, credit business, investments, project ownership and trade/brokerage. The collected criteria cover a&lt;br/&gt;variety of topics that clearly go beyond frequently applied sustainability dimensions in forestry related multi-criteria based&lt;br/&gt;decision making, i.e., social, environmental and economic dimensions. For example, relatively many criteria involve topics&lt;br/&gt;such as project management, risk management or marketing. While differences in criteria weighting among market actor&lt;br/&gt;groups are not significant, we found a significant interaction between criteria weights and the provenance of participants,&lt;br/&gt;indicating that Latin American and European market actors nominate and weight single decision criteria differently. The&lt;br/&gt;five criteria with highest mean weights in the European sample are social benefits, legal compliance, sustainability,&lt;br/&gt;environmental benefits and stakeholder participation. The Latin American market actors weighted highest expertise and&lt;br/&gt;capacity building, financial resources, political aspects, information management and markets. Generally, Latin American&lt;br/&gt;market actors emphasize criteria related to markets and information/knowledge management, whereas European participants&lt;br/&gt;tend to assign importance to social and environmental benefits and sustainability. The survey provides preliminary insights&lt;br/&gt;into bottom-up defined decision criteria relevant for key-actors in the market of tropical forestry-based environmental  services, and compiles information for further multi-criteria based assessments of tropical forestry projects providing&lt;br/&gt;environmental services.</style></abstract></record></records></xml>