Local to global valuation of ecosystem services

Abstract

Natural capital, and the ecosystem services it provides, contributes greatly to human wellbeing but continues to be undervalued in economic decision making; and tends to be over-exploited and degraded as a consequence. In response, there has been a substantial research effort to quantify and communicate the importance of natural capital in economic terms. Most economic valuations of ecosystem services are, however, for small/mid-scale individual ecosystems and a challenge remains to scale-up this information for national, regional and global decision making. This presentation works through this challenge with example applications at the local scale (a forested national park in Malaysia), to the global synthesis of valuation results (Ecosystem Services Valuation Database - ESVD), and the use of this data to inform national decision making (cost-benefit analysis of mangrove conservation in Indonesia).