Our education partners at Colorado State University provided two leading papers on Payment for Ecosystem Services - PES (attached).
PES programs identify environmental services that are of value to buyers that have the willingness and ability to pay for them.
There are 3 working examples of these programs:
1. Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project - a program that pays ranchers for water storage and reduced P loading (funded due to impacts on Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades),
2. Texas - payment for endangered Golden-Cheeked Warbler habitat, and
3. Oregon - payment for salmon habitat, wetlands, upland prairie habitat and water temperature regulation.
All these have in common endangered species or ecosystems with big funding - but there may be some ideas we could borrow in Chaffee.