Chapter 3 Ecosystem Services: Accounting for Nature's Value

Discussion Questions

1. Research conducted by Costanza and others involved assigning dollar values for each hectare of different habitat types. Discuss situations in which this economic value would not be a constant but would vary depending on the size of the habitat under consideration.
2. Of the various economic valuation methods described in this chapter, which do you believe will generate the most reliable and the least reliable estimates? Defend your choices.
3. In situations where the delivery of ecosystem services is not well correlated with species diversity, how should conservationists prioritize their conservation efforts?
4. Describe a situation in which the benefits of focusing conservation efforts on the protection of ecosystem services outweigh the potential risks. Now describe a situation in which the reverse is true and the risks outweigh the benefits.
5. Do you think instrumental value, intrinsic value, or some combination of the two will provide the most convincing argument in favor of conservation?

Group Projects

• Use the Internet to learn about two distinct PES programs other than the Costa Rican and Chinese programs described in this chapter. For each program, describe what ecosystem services are considered, who receives payments, how payments are determined, and how the program is funded. In your judgment, which of the two programs is more likely to succeed for both people and nature? Defend your choice.
  
  
• Identify a parcel of natural habitat in your area and write a report that lists all the ecosystem services it provides. Then, using studies for similar ecosystems, offer reasonable estimates of the dollar value of this local land’s ecosystem services. Discuss how this value would compare to the value of the land if it were converted to a low-density housing development, in which case some, but not all, ecosystem services would be degraded or eliminated.

Useful Websites

• ActionBioscience.org provides a fact sheet on ecosystem services from the Ecological Society of America (ESA). The fact sheet covers the basics, including what an ecosystem is and what ecosystem services are. Be sure to check out the section at the bottom, which provides links to related articles and organizations. http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/esa.html


• Ecosystem Marketplace provides news and data on markets and payments for ecosystem services, particularly for water, carbon, and biodiversity. http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com


• Ecosystem Valuation provides explanations and examples of economic valuation of ecosystem services for non-economists. http://www.ecosystemvaluation.org


• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) is a global assessment of status and trends in ecosystem services. The MEA website provides free access to all MEA reports. http://www.unep.org/maweb


• Natural Capital Project is developing modeling tools such as InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) that incorporate the economic valuation of multiple ecosystem services into environmental decision making. http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org


• The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is a global evaluation of the costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem service decline. http://www.teebweb.org/

Suggested Readings for In-class Discussion

• Luck GW, Chan KMA, Eser U, Gómez-Baggethun E, Matzdorf B, et al. (2012) Ethical considerations in on-ground applications of the ecosystem services concept. Bioscience 62: 1020-1029. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/12/1020.short (open access)
  
  
• Mace GM, Norris K, Fitter AH (2012) Biodiversity and ecosystem services: A multilayered relationship. Trends Ecol Evol 27: 19-26.
  
  
• McShane TO, Hirsch PD, Trung TC, Songorwa AN, Kinzig A, et al. (2011) Hard choices: Making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biol Conserv 144: 966–972.
  
  
• Plummer, M (2009) Assessing benefit transfer for the valuation of ecosystem services. Front Ecol Environ 7:38-45. http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/080091 (open access)
  
  
• Raudsepp-Hearne C, Peterson GD, Tengö M, Bennett EM, Holland T, et al. (2010) Untangling the environmentalist's paradox: Why is human well-being increasing as ecosystem services degrade? Bioscience 60: 576-589. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/8/576.short (open access)
  
  
• Reyers B, Polasky S, Tallis H, Mooney HA, Larigauderie A (2012) Finding common ground for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Bioscience 62: 503-507. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/5/503.short (open access)
  
  
• Satz D, Gould RK, Chan KMA, Guerry A, Norton B, et al. (2013) The challenges of incorporating cultural ecosystem services into environmental assessment. Ambio 42: 675-684.