Nature's Services

Nature's Services PDF Author: Gretchen Cara Daily
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267759
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Life itself as well as the entire human economy depends on goods and services provided by earth's natural systems. The processes of cleansing, recycling, and renewal, along with goods such as seafood, forage, and timber, are worth many trillions of dollars annually, and nothing could live without them. Yet growing human impacts on the environment are profoundly disrupting the functioning of natural systems and imperiling the delivery of these services. Nature's Services brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services, the damage that has been done to them, and the consequent implications for human society. Contributors including Paul R. Ehrlich, Donald Kennedy, Pamela A. Matson, Robert Costanza, Gary Paul Nabhan, Jane Lubchenco, Sandra Postel, and Norman Myers present a detailed synthesis of our current understanding of a suite of ecosystem services and a preliminary assessment of their economic value. Chapters consider: major services including climate regulation, soil fertility, pollination, and pest control philosophical and economic issues of valuation case studies of specific ecosystems and services implication of recent findings and steps that must be taken to address the most pressing concerns Nature's Services represents one of the first efforts by scientists to provide an overview of the many benefits and services that nature offers to people and the extent to which we are all vitally dependent on those services. The book enhances our understanding of the value of the natural systems that surround us and can play an essential role in encouraging greater efforts to protect the earth's basic life-support systems before it is too late.

The Future of Nature

The Future of Nature PDF Author: Libby Robin
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300188471
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
This anthology provides an historical overview of the scientific ideas behind environmental prediction and how, as predictions about environmental change have been taken more seriously and widely, they have affected politics, policy, and public perception. Through an array of texts and commentaries that examine the themes of progress, population, environment, biodiversity and sustainability from a global perspective, it explores the meaning of the future in the twenty-first century. Providing access and reference points to the origins and development of key disciplines and methods, it will encourage policy makers, professionals, and students to reflect on the roots of their own theories and practices.

Nature's Services

Nature's Services PDF Author: Gretchen Cara Daily
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267759
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Life itself as well as the entire human economy depends on goods and services provided by earth's natural systems. The processes of cleansing, recycling, and renewal, along with goods such as seafood, forage, and timber, are worth many trillions of dollars annually, and nothing could live without them. Yet growing human impacts on the environment are profoundly disrupting the functioning of natural systems and imperiling the delivery of these services. Nature's Services brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services, the damage that has been done to them, and the consequent implications for human society. Contributors including Paul R. Ehrlich, Donald Kennedy, Pamela A. Matson, Robert Costanza, Gary Paul Nabhan, Jane Lubchenco, Sandra Postel, and Norman Myers present a detailed synthesis of our current understanding of a suite of ecosystem services and a preliminary assessment of their economic value. Chapters consider: major services including climate regulation, soil fertility, pollination, and pest control philosophical and economic issues of valuation case studies of specific ecosystems and services implication of recent findings and steps that must be taken to address the most pressing concerns Nature's Services represents one of the first efforts by scientists to provide an overview of the many benefits and services that nature offers to people and the extent to which we are all vitally dependent on those services. The book enhances our understanding of the value of the natural systems that surround us and can play an essential role in encouraging greater efforts to protect the earth's basic life-support systems before it is too late.

Nature and the Marketplace

Nature and the Marketplace PDF Author: G. M. Heal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost. Nature and the Marketplace examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services. Written by an economist with a background in business, it evaluates the real prospects for various of nature's marketable services to “turn profits” at levels that exceed the profits expected from alternative, ecologically destructive, business activities. The author: describes the infrastructure that natural systems provide, how we depend on it, and how we are affecting it explains the market mechanism and how it can lead to more efficient resource use looks at key economic activities -- such as ecotourism, bioprospecting, and carbon sequestration -- where market forces can provide incentives for conservation examines policy options other than the market, such as pollution credits and mitigation banking considers the issue of sustainability and equity between generations Nature and the Marketplace presents an accessible introduction to the concept of ecosystem services and the economics of the environment. It offers a clear assessment of how market approaches can be used to protect the environment, and illustrates that with a number of cases in which the value of ecosystems has actually been captured by markets. The book offers a straightforward business economic analysis of conservation issues, eschewing romantic notions about ecosystem preservation in favor of real-world economic solutions. It will be an eye-opening work for professionals, students, and scholars in conservation biology, ecology, environmental economics, environmental policy, and related fields.

The Wealth of Nature

The Wealth of Nature PDF Author: Jeffrey A. McNeely
Publisher: World Conservation Union
ISBN: 9780984168606
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
What makes our planet's natural treasures worth saving, and why should we care? With hundreds of stunning full-color photographs and more than twenty essays from some of the world's most respected scientists, this latest publication in the CEMEX Conservation Book Series aims to provide some of these answers. With scientific analyses, The Wealth of Nature offers a detailed explanation of the various ecosystem services that support and regulate all natural processes on Earth. It also provides cultural context for how these services are vital for our existence and why their futures—and ours—are at risk. The Wealth of Nature maps out the state of our global resources and clarifies the choices that lay before us. It is within our grasp to adapt to the conditions we have created and to mitigate our impact on the future, but the window of opportunity is closing. Take a moment and come and see the award-winning nature photographers capture Earth's intricate web of life and the solutions we are working toward.

Ecosystem Services – Concept, Methods and Case Studies

Ecosystem Services – Concept, Methods and Case Studies PDF Author: Karsten Grunewald
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3662441438
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Nature provides us with many services seemingly for free: recharged groundwater, fertile soil and plant biomass created by photosynthesis. We human beings draw extensive benefits from these “ecosystem services,” or ES – food, water supply, recreation and protection from natural hazards. Major international studies, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, have addressed the enormous role of biodiversity and ecosystems to human well-being, and they draw particular attention to the consequences resulting from the reduction or loss of these services. These very topical issues are being addressed by authors/scientists in a wide variety of disciplines – and their approaches, terminologies and methodological specifics are just as diverse. What, for example, does the efficacy of nature or natural capital mean? Which values of nature are particularly important, how are they distributed in space and time and how can they be assessed and the relevant knowledge promoted? Can all ecosystem services be quantified and even monetarised? What should be done to ensure that the multiple services of nature will be available also in future? This book explains the multifaceted concept of ecosystem services, provides a methodological framework for its analysis and assessment, and discusses case examples, particularly from Germany. It is addressed to scientists and practitioners in the administrative, volunteer and professional spheres, especially those who deal with environment, landscape management and nature conservation and regional and land-use planning. The target group includes experts from the business community, politicians and decision makers, students and all those interested in fundamental ecological, economic, ethical and environmental issues.

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services PDF Author: The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309252458
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Natural environments provide enormously valuable, but largely unappreciated, services that aid humans and other earthlings. It is becoming clear that these life-support systems are faltering and failing worldwide due to human actions that disrupt nature's ability to do its beneficial work. Ecosystem Services: Charting a Path to Sustainability documents the National Academies' Keck Futures Initiative Conference on Ecosystem Services. At this conference, participants were divided into 14 interdisciplinary research teams to explore diverse challenges at the interface of science, engineering, and medicine. The teams needed to address the challenge of communicating and working together from a diversity of expertise and perspectives as they attempted to solve a complicated, interdisciplinary problem in a relatively short time. Ecosystem Services: Charting a Path to Sustainability describes how ecosystem services scientists work to document the direct and indirect links between humanity's well-being and the many benefits provided by the natural systems we occupy. This report explains the specific topics the interdisciplinary research teams addressed at the conference, including the following: -how ecosystem services affect infectious and chronic diseases -how to identify what resources can be produced renewably or recovered by developing intense technologies that can be applied on a massive scale -how to develop social and technical capabilities to respond to abrupt changes in ecosystem services -how to design agricultural and aquacultural systems that provide food security while maintaining the full set of ecosystem services needed from landscapes and seascapes -how to design production systems for ecosystem services that improve human outcomes related to food and nutrition -how to develop appropriate methods to accurately value natural capital and ecosystem services -how to design a federal policy to maintain or improve natural capital and ecosystem services within the United States, including measuring and documenting the effectiveness of the policy -how to design a system for international trade that accounts for impacts on ecosystem services -how to develop a program that increases the American public's appreciation of the basic principles of ecosystem services

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780980742756
Category : Biodiversity
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
There has been a growing public interest in the role and value of natural ecosystems and how they contribute to our quality of life and to human wellbeing. Ecosystems services and their continued provision underpin human existence, health and prosperity. Governments, communities and natural resource managers are taking a broader ecosystem approach to decision making for natural resource management issues that can achieve multiple benefits for landowners and society. Biodiversity is central to the production of ecosystem services; it is the direct source of services, such as food and fibre, and underpins others, such as clean water and air, through the role of organisms in energy and material cycles. This paper provides an overview of the concept of ecosystem services and how they are valued. There are both use values and non-use values that comprise the total economic value, including both the intrinsic values of ecosystems and biodiversity and the market values of goods and services. This paper also addresses new opportunities for developing markets for previously undervalued ecosystem services, and gives examples of where an ecosystem approach has lead to the achievement of multiple outcomes.

Nature and the Marketplace

Nature and the Marketplace PDF Author: G. M. Heal
Publisher: Shearwater Books
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost. Nature and the Marketplace examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services. Written by an economist with a background in business, it evaluates the real prospects for various of nature's marketable services to “turn profits” at levels that exceed the profits expected from alternative, ecologically destructive, business activities. The author: describes the infrastructure that natural systems provide, how we depend on it, and how we are affecting it explains the market mechanism and how it can lead to more efficient resource use looks at key economic activities -- such as ecotourism, bioprospecting, and carbon sequestration -- where market forces can provide incentives for conservation examines policy options other than the market, such as pollution credits and mitigation banking considers the issue of sustainability and equity between generations . Nature and the Marketplace presents an accessible introduction to the concept of ecosystem services and the economics of the environment. It offers a clear assessment of how market approaches can be used to protect the environment, and illustrates that with a number of cases in which the value of ecosystems has actually been captured by markets. The book offers a straightforward business economic analysis of conservation issues, eschewing romantic notions about ecosystem preservation in favor of real-world economic solutions. It will be an eye-opening work for professionals, students, and scholars in conservation biology, ecology, environmental economics, environmental policy, and related fields.

The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services

The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services PDF Author: J. B. Ruhl
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267694
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services is the first comprehensive exploration of the status and future of natural capital and ecosystem services in American law and policy. The book develops a framework for thinking about ecosystem services across their ecologic, geographic, economic, social, and legal dimensions and evaluates the prospects of crafting a legal infrastructure that can help build an ecosystem service economy that is as robust as existing economies for manufactured goods, natural resource commodities, and human-provided services. The book examines the geographic, ecological, and economic context of ecosystem services and provides a baseline of the current status of ecosystem services in law and society. It identifies shortcomings of current law and policy and the critical areas for improvement and forges an approach for the design of new law and policy for ecosystem services. Included are a series of nine empirical case studies that explore the problems caused by society’s failure to properly value natural capital. Among the case study topics considered are water issues, The Conservation Reserve Program, the National Conservation Buffer Initiative, the agricultural policy of the European Union, wetland mitigation, and pollution trading. The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services is a groundbreaking look at the question of whether and how law and policy can shape a sustainable system of ecosystem service management. It is an accessible and informative work for faculty, students, and policy makers concerned with ecology, economics, geography, political science, environmental studies, law, and related fields.

Integrating Ecosystem Services Into National Forest Service Policy and Operations

Integrating Ecosystem Services Into National Forest Service Policy and Operations PDF Author: Emily Weidner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ecosystem management
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description