Nature's Services: Societal Dependence On Natural Ecosystems

by Gretchen Daily (Editor), John Peterson Myers (Foreword), Joshua Reichert (Foreword)

Life itself as well as the entire human economy depends on goods and services provided by earth's natural systems. The processes of cleansing, recycling, and renewal, along with goods such as seafood, forage, and timber, are worth many trillions of dollars annually, and nothing could live without them. Yet growing human impacts on the environment are profoundly disrupting the functioning of natural systems and imperiling the delivery of these services. Nature's Services brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services, the damage that has been done to them, and the consequent implications for human society. Contributors including Paul R. Ehrlich, Donald Kennedy, Pamela A. Matson, Robert Costanza, Gary Paul Nabhan, Jane Lubchenco, Sandra Postel, and Norman Myers present a detailed synthesis of our current understanding of a suite of ecosystem services and a preliminary assessment of their economic value. Chapters

Genres: Nature, Environment, Nonfiction, Science

412 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1997

About the author

Katherine Ellison is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent and author of four non-fiction books."

Reviews

[Mira]

One of my PhD advisors co-authored one of the chapters in this book which I read in preparation of my qualifying exam. But in conversation with him on this core work in ecosystem service valuation, we reached the jarring conclusion that we have known so much for so long and so so little has been done. The road ahead for early career environmental scientists is unfortunately grim

[Mills College Library]

304.2 N2859 1997