This case illustrates how ecosystem service assessments can help to catalyse changes in conservation and development policy and management practice − but are rarely the sole factor. In the Upper Tuul example, the intention was to “make the case” for a higher policy and budgetary priority to be accorded to the UpperTuul ecosystem.
The evidence generated by the assessment study played a key role in “making the case” for improved investment in ecosystem conservation, and has been followed by a number of changes in the government’s stated policies and plans for watershed conservation and financing. Due to conservation authorities lack sufficient budget to enable effective conservation and reluctance of the local community, the key challenge was to identify concrete mechanisms which could serve to secure adequate public funding and set in place sufficient local incentives for ecosystem conservation in the Upper Tuul.