The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity : ecological and economic foundations

The TEEB study is underpinned by an assessment of state-of-the-art science and economics. The goal is to provide the conceptual foundation to link economics and ecology and to posit a paradigm of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services. This aspect of the study tackles the challenges of valuing ecosystem services, as well as issues related to economic discounting. It aims to quantify the costs of inaction and examine the macroeconomic dimension of ecosystem services loss. This information will focus on improving our understanding of the economic costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. This survey is the most comprehensive overview of existing thinking in this area to date, and the process is bringing scientists and economists together to provide the analysis and tools required in order for us to be able to create a robust methodological framework enabling the decision-makers at different levels to do economic analysis of ecosystem services and biodiversity.