Portland, Oregon

The Pacific Northwest is increasingly ripe for a regional conference to further spur and galvanize emerging efforts to form conservation banks, carbon markets, water quality trading schemes, and other attempts to improve environmental conditions through market mechanisms. A recent climate change conference held in Seattle and organized by King County Executive Ron Sims drew a sell-out crowd of over 700 people. In October 2005, a group of 50 regional economists released a report on the consequences of climate change in Oregon. The message: Oregon and Washington, with their reliance on snow pack, will fare considerably worse than other places in the face of climate change and the states need to act now and act quickly. With emerging efforts for ecosystem service market formation at the Oregon Department of Transportation (conservation banks) and the Department of Environmental Quality (water quality trading schemes), the expansion of the Portland-based Climate Trust (mitigates carbon emissions for new utilities in Oregon and elsewhere), and the creation of a carbon registry in California, there is considerable interest in ecosystem market development. At the same time, the topic remains fairly new and there is considerable opportunity for learning and for accelerating the pace of adoption of appropriate market mechanisms and the formation of more robust regional markets. 

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The Portland Katoomba meeting brought together leading entrepreneurs responsible for spurring the growth of environmental markets in the Pacific Northwest. From carbon credits to conservation banking, environmental markets are fundamentally transforming the landscape, changing environmental liabilities into assets, and adversaries into allies. The Pacific Northwest has always been at the forefront of work on environmental markets, and this conference illustrated that the region is brimming with innovators and poised for significant market development. 

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We heard some of the best speakers, talking about some of the most interesting examples in the use of environmental markets from around the world and the Pacific Northwest. The first two days of the conference were a series of plenary sessions on forest carbon, biodiversity, watershed payments, and financial funds and institutions capitalizing on these new market opportunities. The third day was composed of technical workshops on developing specific markets and instruments. At the end of this conference, we emerged with an understanding of how environmental markets work and how we can be a part of this exciting global development. 

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While the focus was on the Pacific Northwest, examples and speakers were drawn from international and national initiatives, and the conference was highly relevant to participants from all regions interested in developing and enhancing ecosystem service markets. 

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The conference was the first regional expression of The Katoomba Group, an international working group composed of leading experts from forest and energy industries, research institutions, the financial world, and environmental NGOs, all dedicated to facilitating strategic partnerships that can launch green forest products in the marketplace. The group met for the first time in Katoomba, Australia in 2000, and has held subsequent meetings in England, British Columbia, Switzerland, Thailand, Uganda, Brazil, and Japan. This was the first gathering of the Katoomba Group in the United States. The conference planning group's goal is to create an ongoing effort in the region to stimulate and nurture market development, and we look forward to your thoughts on how to shape this new initiative.