Essay On Ecosystem Services

540 Words2 Pages

Valuation of Ecosystem Services

Economists worldwide have been criticized for their quest to price tag ecosystem services. Allocating funds for management and protection of these resources involve difficult decision making for resource managers. These decisions are purely economic decisions and hence depend on societal values implicitly or explicitly. Thus economic values help in judging and justifying priorities given to certain programs, policies or actions that are meant to restore or protect ecosystem services.

Factors that complicate Ecosystem Management Decisions

Ecosystem decisions are complicated because of the various types of market failure that are associated with the environment and natural resources. Market failures occur when markets fail to reflect the total costs and benefits associated with a good. For example, the price of petrol does not reflect its total costs in terms of pollution, its effect on the environment and the other negative externalities it costs the society.

Reasons for Market failures associated with ecosystems include
• Ecosystems provide public ...

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