8.9. Braat
Keynote Presentations from the 5th ALTER-Net Summer School, Peyresq 5 - 14 September 2010
Speaker: Leon Braat
leon.braat -at- wur.nl
ALTERRA, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
Personal homepage
Title of the talk: The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity (pdf: 5MB)
Abstract
The economics of ecosystems and biodiversityThe Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, published under the umbrella of the United Nations in 2005, brought the concept of ecosystem services to politicians and the public. The notion that ecosystems, nature, biodiversity are of relevance to economic welfare of people and nations was then already well known in the academic world, both in the ecological and in economic faculties, but had been put in the background by the climate debate.
In October 2010, at the 10th Conference of Parties in Nagoya, Japan, a series of reports from a project called TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) will be presented and will be summarised now in my talk. TEEB was initiated in 2007 by the German Government and the European Commission, and has been adopted by UNEP. It addresses the global challenge of managing the ecosystems and their biodiversity for a sustainable human future, social well being and economic welfare.
Basic understanding of the real world dynamics in ecosystems and social-economic systems, as well as of the strengths and limitations of the sciences of ecology and economics, and awareness of the abuse made of these sciences in local to global politics are required to create opportunities for dealing with the global degradation of ecosystems and biodiversity and the persistent poverty for billions around the world.
My contribution to the ALTER-Net Summer school aims to provide a basis for the discussion among the students about this field of science – public policy – and business enterprise.
