This paper was originally produced for the “International Conference on Payments for Environmental Services,” held in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China on 6–7 September 2009, and jointly hosted by the People's Republic of China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is part of the full volume of conference proceedings published by ADB in December 2010, entitled “Payments for Ecological Services and Eco-Compensation: Practices and Innovations in the People's Republic of China”.