III-4. Ecosystem services and administrative policy

The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services

Environmental law and public policy arise out of traditional conflicts between different parties interested in the use of air, light, water, and the peaceful surround for competing purposes. For example, the noxious smell of your hog waste ponds ruins the fresh air around my home. Or the shopping center you are planning to build on the banks of Community Creek will in fact cover and destroy 30 ...

Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy

Governments worldwide are recognising ecosystem services as an approach to address sustainability challenges. Decision-makers need credible and legitimate measurements of ecosystem services to evaluate decisions for trade-offs to make wise choices. Managers lack these measurements because of a data gap linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services. The dominant method to address...

Policy impacts of ecosystem services knowledge.

Research about ecosystem services (ES) often aims to generate knowledge that influences policies and institutions for conservation and human development. However, we have limited understanding of how decision-makers use ES knowledge or what factors facilitate use. Here we address this gap and report on, to our knowledge, the first quantitative analysis of the factors and conditions that explain...

Coastal and Marine Ecosystem Services Valuation for Policy and Management

Ecosystem services and economic theory: integration for policy-relevant research.

It has become essential in policy and decision-making circles to think about the economic benefits (in addition to moral and scientific motivations) humans derive from well-functioning ecosystems. The concept of ecosystem services has been developed to address this link between ecosystems and human welfare. Since policy decisions are often evaluated through cost-benefit assessments, an economic...