What is the economic value of clean air? Of a forest? Of a mangrove swamp?
Key elements of our environmental heritage have been lost because no one put a price on them. By assigning an economic value to the services ecosystems provide to society, we can help markets do what they do best. And land and water managers can better understand the true costs and benefits of their resource decisions.
For years, the Heinz Center has worked to spread understanding of how ecosystems really work – most famously through the landmark State of the Nation’s Ecosystems reports. Today we work to advance the cause of monetizing ecosystem services by highlighting successful case studies, providing economic analyses and developing primers for policy makers and the public.
