Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services Conference: Ecosystem Services as a Tool for Conservation

Developing a formal relationship between the sciences of ecology and economics will facilitate our ability to model how human societies interact with natural systems and to make predictions about future outcomes. The development of integrated methods for establishing ecosystem indicators and understanding the value of ecosystem services can lead to market-based conservation practices, under which ecosystem protection is profitable for private decision makers and revenue generating for local and regional economies.The conference is intended to bring together ecological and physical scientists, economists and policy makers from academic institutions, government, non-governmental organizations and private business to discuss an integrated research framework and develop policy mechanisms for the provision of ecosystem services.