conservation biology

Nearly 90 percent of the earth's land surface is directly affected by human infrastructure and activities, yet less than 5 percent is legally "protected" for biodiversity conservation--and even most large protected areas have people living inside their boundaries. In all but a small fraction of the earth's land area, then, conservation and people must coexist. Conservation is a resource for all those who aim to reconcile biodiversity with human livelihoods.

• aim
• based natural resource management
• biodiversity conservation
• coexist
• community ecology
• conservation biology
• conservation strategies
• earth
• ecology conservation
• human infrastructure
• land surface
• livelihood development
• natural resource management
• natural sciences
• oriented view
• perspectives
• political ecology
• poverty alleviation
• promising avenues
• protected areas

In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost.Nature and the Marketplace examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services.

• accessible introduction
• bioprospecting
• carbon sequestration
• conservation biology
• conservation issues
• controversial proposition
• economic solutions
• ecosystem preservation
• ecosystem services
• ecosystems
• environmental economics
• eschewing
• healthy environment
• human populations
• market approaches
• marketplace
• pollution credits
• profits
• romantic notions
• straightforward business