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Nature's Returns Special Edition: Mainstreaming the Value of Nature

Can you talk about nature in terms of jobs, income and health? A growing number of conservationists say that not only is the answer “yes”, but that quantifying the benefits of these so-called ecosystem services offers the best hope to slow the degradation of the global environment.
 
Yet despite advances in the science of ecosystem services, there has been little progress in applying it to policy on a large scale. Stated in a paper co-authored by a team of experts including Heather Tallis, Lead Scientist with The Nature Conservancy, the promise of ecosystem service science “will remain unrealized” until there are standardized operating procedures for making it happen.

Next week, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (F&ES) will host a panel discussion on the state of ecosystem services, and how scientists, policymakers and corporate leaders might achieve such a system of global standards. Panelists include Heather Tallis, Lead Scientist with The Nature Conservancy, Stephen Polansky, a professor of ecological/environmental economics at the University of Minnesota; Bradford Gentry, Professor at Yale F&ES and the Yale School of Management and Director of the Yale Center for Business and the Environment; and Eli Fenichel, a professor of economics at F&ES. Spencer Meyer, a NatureNet Science Fellow at F&ES, will moderate the discussion. 

The free online event will be live streamed and is open to the public. Sign up to receive future invitations on this topic. 

Interested in reading more before the live stream event? Check out an interview conducted with Heather Tallis on why countries have been slow to adopt policies that reflect the value of ecosystem services, how scientists can better communicate these benefits to the private and public sectors, and the role universities can play in bridging these worlds.


 


 

Speakers

Bradford S. Gentry

F.K. Weyerhaeuser Professor in the Practice at Yale School of the Environment and Yale School of Management
Faculty Co-Director at Yale Center for Business and the Environment

Eli Fenichel

Associate Professor at Yale School of the Environment

Steve Polansky

Professor of Ecological/ Environmental Economics at University of Minnesota