Value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital: Toward a dynamic, integrated approach

Our first workshop on this topic at NCEAS in June of 1996 was very successful at synthesizing the large (but scattered) existing information about the value of ecosystem services and natural capital and presenting it in a form useful for ecologists, economists, policy makers, and the general public. The results were ultimately published in Nature (Costanza et. al. 1997) and (as we intended) stimulated much discussion, media attention, and debate, including stories in the NY Times, Newsweek, Science, Science News, and US News and World Report. The methods used in the first synthesis were admittedly crude and imperfect, but they also pointed the way to improved assessments. In particular, they pointed to the need to develop comprehensive ecological economic models that could adequately incorporate the complex interdependencies between ecosystems and economic systems, and the complex dynamics of these systems. The goals of this working group are to utilize the results and momentum of the first workshop to:

1. Reassess and update the results of the first workshop
2. Carry the process further, toward the goal of developing and using integrated models for the assessment of the value of ecosystem services.