The Economic Value of Biodiversity


Book Description

Biodiversity loss is one of the major resource problems facing the world, and the policy options available are restricted by inappropriate economic tools which fail to capture the value of species and their variety. This study describes in non-technical terms how cost-benefit analysis techniques can be applied to species and species loss, and how they provide a measure of the efficiency of conservation measures. Only when conservation can be shown to pass such a basic economic test, the authors claim, will it be incorporated into policies.;David Pearce has also written Blueprint for a Green Economy.




Conserving Biodiversity


Book Description

The loss of the earth's biological diversity is widely recognized as a critical environmental problem. That loss is most severe in developing countries, where the conditions of human existence are most difficult. Conserving Biodiversity presents an agenda for research that can provide information to formulate policy and design conservation programs in the Third World. The book includes discussions of research needs in the biological sciences as well as economics and anthropology, areas of critical importance to conservation and sustainable development. Although specifically directed toward development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and decisionmakers in developing nations, this volume should be of interest to all who are involved in the conservation of biological diversity.







Valuing Ecosystem Services


Book Description

Nutrient recycling, habitat for plants and animals, flood control, and water supply are among the many beneficial services provided by aquatic ecosystems. In making decisions about human activities, such as draining a wetland for a housing development, it is essential to consider both the value of the development and the value of the ecosystem services that could be lost. Despite a growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services, their value is often overlooked in environmental decision-making. This report identifies methods for assigning economic value to ecosystem servicesâ€"even intangible onesâ€"and calls for greater collaboration between ecologists and economists in such efforts.




Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case for Action


Book Description

This report sets the economic and business case for urgent and ambitious action on biodiversity. It presents a preliminary assessment of current biodiversity-related finance flows, and discusses the key data and indicator gaps that need to be addressed to underpin effective monitoring of both the pressures on biodiversity and the actions (i.e. responses) being implemented. The report concludes with ten priority areas where G7 and other countries can prioritise their efforts.




Natural Resource Economics


Book Description

People make decisions regarding the use of natural resources every day, from the individual recycling a sheet of paper to governments of large nations creating energy policy. Those decisions ultimately affect people around the world. Their motivation and results are best framed and analyzed using the tools of natural resource economics. Field presents the methods and applications of the discipline in the latest edition of his popular text. The updated book retains its successful structure, first presenting basic economic principles as they apply to natural resource use and then examining the economic issues surrounding individual resources. New material is included on: energy demand and efficiency; nonrenewable resources; individual transferable fishing quotas; water pricing; agricultural cropland programs; and the Endangered Species Act.




Explorations in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics


Book Description

This volume contains an excellent set of papers by top scholars in environmental and resource economics. These papers span the wide range of topics that characterized the extraordinarily broad and productive career of Gardner Brown. They bring current issues in modeling important environmental policy questions into sharp focus in a way that emphasizes Brown s seminal insights. Richard Carson, University of California, San Diego, US I am glad this book has been written. Gardner is clearly too radical to get a statue and I doubt he would have the patience to sit long enough for the sculptor to finish. Yet Gardner s ideas really deserve remembrance. The editors have managed not only to cover many of the areas and methods Gardner worked with but also to find authors who loved and/or respected him and who have honoured him by providing high quality work in his spirit. The book is imbued with those curious blends of curiosity and rigour, daring abstraction and yet painstaking attention to detail that are so characteristic of Gardner s work. It was a great pleasure to read. Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Gardner M. Brown, Jr. has been a leading innovator in the development of environmental and natural resource economics. This book comprises essays written in his honor by some of the most distinguished economists working in this field. The principal themes addressed include fundamental theoretical and empirical issues in the valuation of environmental and natural resources; the relationships between economic growth, natural resources and environmental quality; re-evaluation of some standard results in the dynamic modeling of renewable and non-renewable resources; the protection and management of biological resources; and the economics of antibiotic resistance. The original papers within this book will be of great interest to academics and practitioners in the field of environmental and natural resource economics.




Conservation Biogeography


Book Description

CONSERVATION BIOGEOGRAPHY The Earth’s ecosystems are in the midst of an unprecedented period of change as a result of human action. Many habitats have been completely destroyed or divided into tiny fragments, others have been transformed through the introduction of new species, or the extinction of native plants and animals, while anthropogenic climate change now threatens to completely redraw the geographic map of life on this planet. The urgent need to understand and prescribe solutions to this complicated and interlinked set of pressing conservation issues has lead to the transformation of the venerable academic discipline of biogeography – the study of the geographic distribution of animals and plants. The newly emerged sub-discipline of conservation biogeography uses the conceptual tools and methods of biogeography to address real world conservation problems and to provide predictions about the fate of key species and ecosystems over the next century. This book provides the first comprehensive review of the field in a series of closely interlinked chapters addressing the central issues within this exciting and important subject.




A Biological Survey for the Nation


Book Description

Our country has long recognized the importance of its biological resources but we often lack sufficient scientific knowledge to make wise decisions. This realization has led to calls for new ways of providing this information, including the formation of a national biological survey. This volume discusses key issues and problems for which an improved assessment of the nation's biological resources is needed; the kinds of efforts in research and information management needed to create that assessment; and how government, private organizations, and individuals can work together to meet the needs identified. Policymakers, resource managers, public interest groups, and researchers will find this book useful as they participate in the national dialogue on this topic and take actions to implement the needed survey activities.