Ecosystem services: The economics debate

From health services economics to health economics: for debate.

Liverpool City Council and Health Authorities recently launched their City Health Plan, a five-year strategy to improve health and well-being in Liverpool, building on the foundations of the WHO Healthy Cities initiative. This strategy addresses the following key areas: housing for health, poverty and unemployment and health, health and the environment, health action for children and young peop...

Ecosystem Services and the Economics of Biodiversity Conservation

The concept of ecosystems services provides a robust and complementary rationale for biodiversity conservation to the traditional arguments based on intrinsic value. In principle, it also provides a mechanism for optimizing investments in biodiversity conservation and directing them to where they are most useful. This requires the valuation of ecosystem services, and in particular, the contribu...

Ecosystem services

Humans have always depended on nature for environmental assets like clean water, nutrient cycling and soil formation. These have been called by different names through human history, but are presently gaining global attention as 'ecosystem services'. Gretchen Daily defines ecosystem services as " the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, s...

Integrating Ecology and Economics in the Study of Ecosystem Services: Some Lessons Learned

This paper discusses both the opportunities for and the challenges associated with integrating economics and ecology in the study of ecosystem services. We distinguish between integration in positive versus normative analysis. There is rapid growth in positive research that combines the two disciplines to provide insight and better understanding of the bidirectional linkage between economic and...

Economics and Ecosystem Management : Discussion