Policies for Sustainable Governance of Global Ecosystem Services

This book provides a compilation of policy, institutional and governance recommendations from eighteen leading international experts, in response to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) finding that over the last 50 years humans have degraded ecosystems services at a faster rate and on a larger scale than at any time in human history. The MEA provided the most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of the conditions and trends of ecosystems. By design, the MEA stopped short of prescribing policy recommendations. With this in mind, the international contributors have been drawn from diverse backgrounds to review the MEA findings and define a global action agenda for governments, businesses, international organizations, civil society, and research organizations.The book encompasses recommendations at the local, national and global scales. "Policies for Sustainable Governance of Global Ecosystem Services" proposes an action agenda for integrating ecosystem considerations into development decisions. It focuses on ecosystem services as the benefits people receive from nature. It seeks to change the focus from how to protect ecosystems from development to how to invest in ecosystems for development. It represents earliest thinking on a global action agenda for reversing ecosystem degradation and promoting more robust development. This book is aimed at professionals, academics and researchers working in the environmental and development fields including advanced undergraduates and graduates of environmental, ecosystem and development studies. It will also be of great value to civil society organizations and environmental research organizations as well as policymakers themselves and the interested lay reader.