Policymakers looking to reduce deforestation in their countries have the right tools to do so today, but without a solid foundation in good governance and consistent policies, they will not be successful, said a prominent policy expert.
How do you put a price on the value of nature? That’s the question Indian banker Pavan Sukhdev and his colleagues are seeking to answer in their international project on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), which published its latest report last month. The challenge, as Sukhdev sees it, is how to address the “economic invisibility of nature,” which allows the economic value of ecosystems to be ignored by governments and businesses.
Keen to guard its ranking as Asia's happiest country, Bhutan has hosted a climate summit and an international symposium accompanied by an exhibition in the Kingdom's capital Thimphu – far away from the hustle and bustle of world's metropolitan cities – in run-up to a landmark UN conference in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9, 2011.
Over the past 50 years, 60 percent of all ecosystem services have declined as a direct result of the conversion of land to the production of foods, fuels and fibers.
"This should come as no surprise," say seven of the world's leading environmental scientists, who met to collectively to study the pitfalls of utilizing markets to induce people to take account of the environmental costs of their behavior and solutions. "We are getting what we pay for."
In Pakistan, environmental degradation is both a cause and consequence of different socio-economic problems including deepening poverty, declining performance of different crops and worsening problems with human and crop diseases.
Environmentalists say that a fragile and damaged resource base is a key cause of rising poverty. Degraded land affects agricultural yields and forest resources are mindlessly exploited, reducing the ability of millions of poor people to earn livelihoods from them.
But the poor have no option but to overuse rapidly depleting resources.
We are pleased to announce the 5th issue of the UNEP Policy Series on Ecosystem Management titled ‘''Sustaining forests: investing in our common future”
This paper discusses the public sector's role in PES internationally. In general, the public sector's role in ecosystem services markets is both critical, and evolving. The public sector roles are evolving in three distinct ways:
