Contributions of Natural Capital Approaches to the Implementation of Public Policies in Chile: Case Study

The project in the Bueno River Basin aimed to generate biophysical, economic, and spatial information to better understand the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being and productive activities in the region, and to demonstrate how this evidence can be used to support public policy decision-making in Chile. As an applied exercise, the project explored the usefulness of this information for the regulatory instruments of Chiles recently established Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (SBAP), with a particular focus on the Biodiversity Offsets Instrument.

The study characterized the supply, use, and monetary value of key ecosystem services in the area and integrated these results into a set of spatial products, including ecosystem service supply maps, an economic map, a map based on regulatory criteria, and an optimization analysis. When used together, these tools help identify strategic areas for restoration where environmental, socioeconomic, and regulatory priorities converge.

Taken together, these products provide valuable inputs for territorial decision-making, strengthen planning processes, support coherence across policy instruments, and help guide cost-effective decisions based on ecosystem and economic evidence. The products were complemented by an analysis of public policy instruments aimed at identifying concrete opportunities to integrate natural capital information into decision-making processes.