Preface There is a significant gap in connecting socio-ecological enterprises with impact investors and funders by language, by purpose, by objective, and by approach. Under its'Climate Finance' programme, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, engaged Second Nature Sustainable Solutions to develop an Impact Investment Primer(IIP) for change-makers who work on, or aspire to create, transformational impact but are not connected to the impact investment ecosystem. Since May 2020, almost 70 change-makers, representing the diversity of socio-ecological sectors ranging from Education and Human Rights to Ecological Services to Sustainable Housing and Architecture, and from Clean Energy to WASH(Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) and Waste Management, have participated in the programme. Several enterprises also engaged in one-on-one impact advisory. The learnings and experiences of these social enterprises led to the development of the key elements of an Impact Investment Ecosystem(IIE) for Transformative System Change (https://india.fes.de/e/an-impact-investment-ecosystem-for-transformative-systems-change). One of the four pillars of the IIE is Impact for Ecosystem Restoration and Regeneration(https://india.fes.de/fileadmin/user_upload/IIE.pdf). Four such enterprises, that are deemed to be at different stages of the investment lifecycle for impact enterprises (Sengupta, 2015), are working on integrated and economically sustainable programs for the restoration and regeneration of natural ecosystems, simultaneously with generating community livelihoods. 1. Sustainable livelihoods through conservation and restoration of degraded forest lands: Wayanad, Kerala(Preparation phase) 2. Circular economic model for climate resilience, biodiversity restoration and community livelihoods: forests of Uttarakhand(Validation phase) 3. Mangrove ecosystem restoration and sustainable livelihoods: coastal region of Sundarbans, West Bengal(Blueprint phase) 4. High density income generating plantations for marginal& small farmland owners: Baramati district of Maharashtra (Blueprint phase) To bring predictability and scale to ecosystem restoration, new-age financial constructs, rooted in the Impact Investment paradigm are needed. Models such as Payments for Ecosystem Services(PES) create a vibrant socio­economic system that incentivises communities as ecosystem stewards. However, it is becoming apparent that financial constructs, rooted in the impact investment paradigm for natural resource management(NRM) and Nature-based Solutions(NbS) remain consigned to small pilots and conferences, while their immense potential remains untapped. This position paper is the outcome of a conscious decision to both, learn from these four on-the-ground ecosystems­based initiatives, and to outline a multi-stakeholder approach to scale these(and similar) initiatives using PES and other market-based models. In the first part, it brings together the context and current knowledge in this domain. In the second part, it charts out the principles and methods for like-minded entities to collaborate and adopt for establishing a successful PES programme. Additionally, it explores the links between long-term sustainability of natural assets and the reduction in vulnerability of people to climate change and environmental stresses. We'd like to thank FES-India for supporting this work, specifically Mandvi Kulshreshtha, Program Adviser, for facilitating the efforts and resources to evaluate these initiatives and establish the multi-stakeholder interactions that have led to this paper. Ashish Mehta Sarbjit Singh Sahota Payments for Ecosystem Services IV