Conservation finance is distinct from conservation payments.  The former is about raising funds for conservation, whereas the latter is about spending them. Conservation funds can be generated from taxes, user fees, debt-for-nature swaps, price premiums for eco-friendly products, donations, etc.  These funds could be used for a variety of conservation interventions including education, community-based NRM, conservation performance payments, integrated conservation and development projects, etc. This distinction is akin to the distinction between a conservation payment program that uses a portion of a water user tax to finance its operations and a road infrastructure maintenance project that uses a portion of a water user tax to finance its operations.  The source of funds is the same, but how the programs spend the money is different. 

Confusion arises because one potential attribute of payment schemes that many believe makes them more desirable than alternative conservation programs is that the payment mechanism can more naturally be paired with a charge to the beneficiaries (i.e., water users more willing to pay, and politicians more willing to charge, a water tax to protect watersheds than to fix roads). Such charges are believed by some to increase the sustainability of the operation (I am agnostic on this hypothesis; it has not been clearly though through at this time).  However, it is important to recognize that charging a beneficiary a fee is not a payment to sellers for supplying an ecosystem service.  This conceptual difference underlies a lot of the debate about what a “Payment for Environmental Service” (PES) is.  For many people (myself included), PES is fundamentally a mechanism for supply.  Although conservation finance is clearly important for PES, it is important for any conservation program and does not distinguish PES from other conservation interventions.  For other people, PES is fundamentally about a quasi-competitive market in which demand (revenue-raising) and supply (revenue-spending) are intricately linked and jointly determine outcomes.  As an economist, I view folks who see PES as I do to be trying to draw lessons from contract theory (and thus view the question of finance separately) and I view folks who see PES in the alternative fashion as trying to draw lessons from competitive market equilibrium theory (and view the questions of finance and supply jointly).  These conceptual differences lead to large differences in approach and advocacy, as well as unnecessary debate such as the McCauley article in Nature (http://micheli.stanford.edu/people/McCauley_Nature_2006.pdf ).  This article conflates payments and finance and thus muddies the dialogue.