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Science 9 August 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5583, pp. 950 - 953
DOI: 10.1126/science.1073947
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Review

Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature

Andrew Balmford,1* Aaron Bruner,2 Philip Cooper,3 Robert Costanza,4dagger Stephen Farber,5 Rhys E. Green,16 Martin Jenkins,7 Paul Jefferiss,6 Valma Jessamy,3 Joah Madden,1 Kat Munro,1 Norman Myers,8 Shahid Naeem,9 Jouni Paavola,3 Matthew Rayment,6 Sergio Rosendo,3 Joan Roughgarden,10 Kate Trumper,1 R. Kerry Turner3

On the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, it is timely to assess progress over the 10 years since its predecessor in Rio de Janeiro. Loss and degradation of remaining natural habitats has continued largely unabated. However, evidence has been accumulating that such systems generate marked economic benefits, which the available data suggest exceed those obtained from continued habitat conversion. We estimate that the overall benefit:cost ratio of an effective global program for the conservation of remaining wild nature is at least 100:1.

1 Conservation Biology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
2 Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, 1919 M Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA.
3 Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
4 Center for Environmental Science, Biology Department and Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Maryland, Box 38, Solomons, MD 20688, USA.
5 Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
6 The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL, UK.
7 UN Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 ODL, UK.
8 Green College, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HG, UK; and Upper Meadow, Old Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 8SZ, UK.
9 Department of Zoology, University of Washington, 24 Kincaid Hall, Box 351800, Seattle, WA 98195-1800, USA.
10 Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.balmford{at}zoo.cam.ac.uk

dagger    Address after Sept. 2002: Gund Institute of Ecological Economics, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.

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