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- 21 December 2017
- 21 December 2017How we should value biodiversity in the Anthropocene
Seddon et al. (2016) highlight the urgent need to better integrate multiple different values of biodiversity into decision-making supporting sustainable development. They make a good start on this in focussing explicitly on those biodiversity values associated with “ecological processes”:
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“biodiversity supports human well-being either directly through enhanced ecosystem functions and services … or indirectly by increasing the resilience of such functions in the face of environmental change.”
But ecological processes do not have to be the only processes regarded as important. One complementary perspective explores biodiversity values associated with evolutionary processes (e.g. Faith et al 2010). This perspective expands beyond those within-ecosystem functions and services to also highlight global biodiversity “option values”. For example, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) “Conceptual Framework” has recognised “the option values of biodiversity as a reservoir of yet-to-be discovered uses from known and still unknown species and biological processes, and as a constant source, through evolutionary processes, of novel biological solutions to the challenges of a changing environment.” (Diaz et al 2015).
Biodiversity option values are not discussed by Seddon et al, but can fit into an expanded version of their “economic valuation approaches to biodiversity conservation”. The “Biodiversity Synthesis” of the Millenniu...Conflict of Interest:
None declared.