Valuing ecosystem services: a biological perspective

Kent Holsinger

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

What values are threatened?

National Academy of Sciences, Report in Brief (2004)Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision Making

New York City watershed

Coastal wetlands/estuaries: fish production

Flood control services

Food production

Recreational fishing

What do these examples have in common?

Why worry about biodiversity?

We need it

We like it

We ought to

Does economics capture non-use values?

Substitutable?

Stable preference?

Does economics capture non-consumptive values?

No*

*But neither does ecology

AestheticsEthics

What kind of world do we want to live in?