Durham, NC - The government's role in compensating farmers and other land stewards for providing clean water, flood protection and pollination is the topic of a symposium at Duke Law School on Friday, Oct. 23.

The discussion will also focus on the role of carbon offsets on public lands to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The symposium on emerging ecosystem services markets, which is free and open to the public, will bring together specialists from government, academia, and the private sector. The event is sponsored by the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum (DELPF), an interdisciplinary student-edited journal, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Environmental Services and Markets.

Robert Bonnie, senior adviser for environment and climate to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, will deliver the keynote address. Bonnie previously headed the environmental markets programs at the Environmental Defense Fund.

The symposium begins at 9 a.m. in Room 3037 at Duke Law School on Duke's West Campus. Parking is available at the Bryan Center. Continuing Legal Education credit is available.

For a complete agenda and to register, visit http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/delpf/symposium.

Ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and water purification are public goods and worthy of compensation, says Duke professor Jim Salzman, a conference organizer and pioneering scholar in the emerging and fast-growing field of ecosystem services markets.

"Unless the landholders who provide these services receive compensation, then the services they provide are free and there's really no economic reason to manage their land so they keep providing those services," Salzman says.

The fact that the USDA established the Office of Environmental Services and Markets as its first new division in 30 years is a key indicator of how important ecosystem services are to the public well-being, he says.