The concept of ‘ecosystem services’ was born out of frustration with the tendency for decision-making processes governed by cost–benefit calculations to routinely overlook the value of non-human Nature.
By highlighting processes like pollination, water filtration and climate regulation – and reframing them as ‘goods’ and ‘services’ that underpin human wellbeing – conservationists in the 1970s and 1980s hoped to build new support for the goal of biodiversity conservation.
But these concepts soon gathered a momentum and direction of their own, and the articulation of ecosystem benefits in market ...
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