With its first gathering in 2000, the Katoomba Group was launched as an international working group focused on advancing markets for the ecosystem services—including watershed protection, biodiversity habitat, and carbon storage. The Group serves as a source of ideas for and strategic information about ecosystem service markets. It has been known for its international convenings, which have provided a forum for exchanging ideas, influencing policy-makers, and catalyzing new initiatives.

At a 2003 meeting in Switzerland, the Katoomba Group agreed to address both the lack of easy access to information as well as specific regional issues emerging around the evolution of these markets. These two decisions led to the Ecosystem Marketplace as well as beginning of work within Tropical America and the East and Southern Africa.

International Katoomba Group meetings continue, most recently in Portland, Oregon, in June 2006, which brought together leaders in emerging markets for ecological services and explored ways to stimulate and expand the development of robust markets in the Pacific Northwest for ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, habitat and biodiversity conservation, and water quality. In 2008, the International Katoomba Group will host an event in the Chesapeake Bay Area with a focus on water quality trading in the Bay watershed. Click here for details!