Description
This book highlights the latest advances in the science and practice of using ecosystem services to inform decisions for economic development in the context of the developing countries.
The development of the ecosystem services paradigm has enhanced our understanding of natural capital as an indispensable form of capital asset along with produced and human capital. This book addresses what could be the possible pathways to mainstream natural capital assets into development policies and what is currently known about the economic values of ecosystem services. A series of innovative tools to help policy makers and planners account for natural capital and ecosystem services in sectoral and macroeconomic policies have been explored and their application at the national and regional scale has been demonstrated. Several detailed case studies are presented in which the understanding of ecosystem services values has successfully informed decisions, including examples from Chile, South Africa, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and the Aral Sea in Central Asia. These provide the critically important insights, lessons learned and means and mechanisms for policy makers to incentivize protection and discourage degradation of ecosystems and the services they provide.
Mainstreaming Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services into Development Policy is designed to help decision makers at all levels, including governments, businesses, multilevel development banks and individuals to integrate ecosystems and their services into their decision making.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Pushpam Kumar
2. Strategic Environmental Assessment as a tool to mainstream ecosystem services in planning
Davide Geneletti
3. Lessons for mainstreaming ecosystem services into policy and practice from South Africa
Nadia Sitas, Jeanne Nel and Belinda Reyers
4. Linking growth and natural capital in the Republic of Kazakhstan: A case study of Aral Sea
Terry Roe and Rodney Smith
5. Mapping the cultural services of ecosystems and heritage sites in the Usumacinta floodplain in Mexico
Andrea Ghermandi and Vera Camacho-Valdez
6. Building Consensus through Assessment Evidence from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
Bernardo Broitman, Eric Sproles, Craig Weideman, Sonia Salas, Cristian Geldes, Antonia Zambra, Leticia González-Silvestre and Lorena Bugueño
7. Integrating natural capital and ecosystem services into policy and decision making in Trinidad and Tobago
John Agard, Lena Dempewolf, Maurice Andres Rawlins, Carl Obst, Carlos L. Muñoz Brenes and Shirley Murillo Ulate and Keisha Garcia
8. Nature’s Services Facilitate National Green Growth Strategy: Vietnam 2025
Nguyen Van Tai, Kim Thi Thuy Ngoc, Michael Parsons, Jana Juhrbandt, Tran Thi Thu Ha, Tran Trung Kien, Gregg Michael Verutes, Ngo Chi Hung and Le Thi Le Quyen
9. The contribution of Forest Ecosystems in the Tanzanian Economy
Babatunde Abidoye and Eric Mungatana
10. Natural Capital and GDP of the Poor in Vietnam
Pavan Sukhdev and Kaavya Varma
11. Natural Capital and the Rate of Discount
Anil Markandya
