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Payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes are considered a promising
economic instrument for diversifying income to forest owners and rural communities while supporting biodiversity and climate mitigation.
However, benefits from ecosystem services are rarely rewarded, and the application is often limited to small-scale projects, often within pilot-stage initiatives.

The LIFE ProForPES (Promoting effective forest PES through the EU financial and state aid programs) project, co-funding by the LIFE Programme of the European Commission, aims at collecting, synthesising and integrating the knowledge and the know-how already present at the EU 27 level on PES and PES-like schemes.

Secondly, the project will investigate the readiness and possibilities to integrate PES and PES-like within the EU financial program and the state aid framework through an in-depth institutional analysis of the existing gaps and potentialities present within the two frameworks.

The study of the current policy and financial EU programs, flanked by a robust consultation process with the key stakeholders, will provide the knowledge needed to design appropriate policy and business recommendations regarding PES and PES-like schemes integration and potentiality, which will ultimately contribute to sustainable forest ecosystem services provision in Europe and to achieve critical targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy.

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