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Biodiversity Loss: Economic and Ecological Issues

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Edited By: C Perrings, K-G Mäler, C Folke, CS Holling and B-O Jansson

332 pages, 57 illus, 9 tabs

Cambridge University Press

About this book

This volume reports key findings of the Biodiversity Program of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Beijer Institute. The program brought together a number of eminent ecologists and economists to consider the nature and significance of the biodiversity problem. |It illustrates that while the immediate causes of biodiversity loss lies in habitat destruction and harvesting, the underlying causes are incentive which encourage resource users to ignore the effects of their actions.

[The chapters] are solid contributions to the literature. They illuminate many of the core questions of biodiversity and its conservation. They have much to say to conservation biologists, resource economists, environmental strategists, and those concerned with the role of biodiversity in national land-use planning...would make excellent assignments for graduate classes. Norman Myers, BioScience "This book may be the most significant contribution to the interdisciplinary literature on biodiversity...Well-coordinated group discussions and sharing of draft research papers, joint research projects and chapter co-authorship by ecologists and economists, and strong and thoughtful editing have resulted in a coherent volume of original and strong contributions." Richard B. Norgaard, Journal of Wildlife Management "[The chapters] are solid contributions to the literature. They illuminate many of the core questions of biodiversity and its conservation. They have much to say to conservation biologists, resource economists, environmental strategists, and those concerned with the role of biodiversity in national land-use planning...would make excellent assignments for graduate classes." Norman Myers, BioScience "This book may be the most significant contribution to the interdisciplinary literature on biodiversity...Well-coordinated group discussions and sharing of draft research papers, joint research projects and chapter co-authorship by ecologists and economists, and strong and thoughtful editing have resulted in a coherent volume of original and strong contributions." Richard B. Norgaard, Journal of Wildlife Management

Introduction: Framing the problem of biodiversity loss C. Perrings, K.-G. Maler, C. Folke, C. S. Holling and B. O. Jansson; Part I. Conceptualising Diversity and Ecosystem Functions: 1.1. Diversity functions M.Weitzman; 1.2. Biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems C. S. Holling, D. W. Schindler, B. W. Walker, and J. Roughgarden; 1.3. Scale and biodiversity in coastal and estuarine ecosystems R. Constanza, M. Kemp, and W. Boynton; Part II. Integrating Ecology and Economics in the Analysis of Biodiversity Loss: 2.1. Wetland valuation: three case studies R. K. Turner, C. Folke, I. M. Gren and I. Bateman; 2.2. An ecological economy: notes on harvest and growth G. Brown and J. Roughgarden; 2.3. Biodiversity loss and the economics of discontinuous change in semi-arid rangelands C. Perrings and B. W. Walker; Part III. The Economic Issues: 3.1. Economic growth and the environment K.-G. Maler; 3.2. The international regulation of biodiversity decline T. Swanson; 3.3. Policies to control tropical deforestation E. B. Barbier and M. Rauscher; 3.4. On biodiversity conservation S. Barrett; Part IV. Conclusions: 4.1. Unanswered questions C. Perrings, K.-G. Maler, C. Folke, C. S. Holling and B. O. Jansson; References.