Across the world, governments, NGOs, scientists, policy-makers, and resource managers are learning to speak in the language of ecosystem services. It is a concept that seems to belong to what many geographers call neoliberal-style environmental policies. However, the policies and practices around the ecosystem service concept deviate considerably from neoliberal doctrine. Our primary aim is to open up space for informed conversation about ecosystem services in geography by exploring the internal heterogeneity and tensions within the world of ecosystem service policies. In describing these debates on their own terms, we find a diverse and wide-ranging set of actors and viewpoints.