Economics Of Ecosystems Management

A central issue in economics is the optimal allocation of scarce resources. Is efficient allocation indeed optimal and does it lead to sustainable solutions? Lars Hein contributes to this discussion at the interface of ecology and economics, and provides interesting case studies to test various theoretical approaches. The book is a must for both economists with an interest in ecology and for ecologists with an interest in economics! Ekko van Ierland, Wageningen University, the Netherlands Economics and Ecosystems demonstrates how the concepts of economic efficiency, sustainability and equity can be applied in ecosystem management. The book presents an overview of these three concepts, a framework for their analysis and modelling, and three case studies. Specific attention is given to how complex ecosystem dynamics, such as thresholds or irreversible responses, influence ecosystem management options. The case studies focus on ecosystem dynamics and ecosystem services supply in a forest ecosystem, a Dutch wetland, and a rangeland in the Western Sahel. Integrating ecology and economics, this informative book will appeal to postgraduate students in environmental sciences and environmental economics as well as ecosystem managers.

Human well-being is dependent upon 'ecosystem services' provided by nature for free, such as water and air purification, fisheries, timber and nutrient cycling. These are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so their loss is often not detected by our current economic incentive system and therefore continues unabated. A variety of pressures resulting from population growth, changing diets, urbanisation, climate change and many other factors is causing biodiversity to decline and ecosystems to be degraded. The world's.

This volume contains selected papers presented at the International Symposium on 'Economics of Eco system Management' held in Halkidiki, Greece from 26 to 30 September 1983. The meeting was designed to consider as much as possible the interaction between the economy and ecology, and in parallel to provide a forum for the presentation of the ecological and developmental initiatives of the Ministry of Youth of Greece. As chairman of the organizing committee I want to express our thanks to OECD, EEC and UNESCO for sponsoring the Symposium. From Greece the Ministries of Culture and Environment are gratefully acknowl edged. Last but not least, I want to express our sincere thanks for the continuous support to the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Greece, and especially to the Minister Mr. Kostas Laliotis because he not only adopted the idea for sponsoring events like this, but also because of his interest which became obvious with his presence and talk during the meeting. The staff of the Ecology Division, namely Drs. M. Arianoutsou and D. Vokou, Messrs. J. Pandis, Th.A. Mardiris, S. Paraskevopoulos and Miss A. Papagianni provided great help concerning the organization, as well as Mrs. A. Karamanli-Vlahopoulou, my secretary, who is always behind these events. N.S. Margaris Contents Preface by N. S. Margaris V List of contributors VIII PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Opening address by G. Schneider ................................................................. .

In recent years, there has been a marked proliferation in the literature on economic approaches to ecosystem management, which has created a subsequent need for real understanding of the scope and the limits of the economic approaches to ecosystems and

With a strong policy focus, the contributors synthesise the scientific approaches to PES, valuation, trade-offs, equity and the institutional requirements to operationalize a credible concept of economic value. The book also addresses the behavioral fo

The quality of ecosystems is affected by the actions of different stakeholders who use them in a variety of ways. In order to understand this complex relationship between humans and nature, it is vital to understand the complexity of the interacting agents. The authors in this book attempt to do this by applying multi-agent systems to the problems of ecosystem management. The multi-agent approach to ecosystem management is a relatively new and rapidly developing field which takes a formal computational approach towards the interaction of humans with their environment. The authors highlight some of the promising new methodologies which are emerging in the field from disciplines such as computer science and computational social science. They move on to address a number of important topics including diffusion processes, common-pool resources, land use change and the participatory use of models, in an attempt to solve contemporary management issues. They clearly demonstrate the potential utility of multi-agent systems in the context of theoretical problems and practical case studies.

Ecosystem management has emerged in the past several years as the new paradigm for managing public and private land. It combines the principles of ecosystem-level ecology with the policy requirements of resource and public land management. This collection of selected readings will serve as an introduction to the concepts of biological diversity, ecological process, biotic integrity, and ecological sustainability that underlie ecosystem management.