Environmental economics

This book tracks the rise of a powerful idea in global biodiversity conservation. Many scientists, bureacrats, and environmentalists now believe that the only way  to slow the decimation of nonhuman life on earth is to translate conservation into an economically rational -- even profitable -- set of policies and practices. Through multi-sited analysis, Jessica Dempsey explores the drive to produce a nature that can prove its value in economic terms, a nature that can compete in the marketplace and the cost-benefit accounting of modern governance. 

Global spending on nature conservation is currently estimated at around US$50 billion per year. Most of this is public money, yet even this is far from sufficient to maintain biodiversity and the ecosystem services upon which our economies, livelihoods and well-being depend. For this reason, many governments are using payments for ecosystem services (PES) and related market-based instruments to encourage the private sector to do more to protect the environment.

The book expresses the ultimate aim that a Blue Economy business model will shift society from scarcity to abundance "with what we have", by tackling issues that cause environmental and related problems in new ways. The book highlights potential benefits in connecting and combining seemingly disparate environmental problems with open-source scientific solutions based upon physical processes common in the natural world, to create solutions that are both environmentally beneficial and which have financial and wider social benefits.

This book provides a review of progress in achieving the EECCA Environment Strategy's objectives, and provides a solid analytical base for discussions on future environmental co-operation between EECCA countries and their partners.

The Living Planet Report relates the Living Planet Index – a measure of the health of the world's biodiversity – to the Ecological Footprint and the Water Footprint – measures of humanity's demands on the Earth's natural resources. Using an expanded set of complementary indicators, the report documents the changing state of biodiversity, ecosystems and humanity's consumption of natural resources, and explores the implications of these changes for future human health, wealth and well-being.