TY - BOOK AU - Barbier,Edward B. TI - Capitalizing on Nature: Ecosystems as Natural Assets SN - 9781139014922 (ebook) AV - QH75 .B268 2011 U1 - 333.95 23 PY - 2011/// CY - Cambridge PB - Cambridge University Press KW - Ecosystem management KW - Environmental economics N1 - Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 04 Apr 2016) N2 - The basic unit of nature – the ecosystem – is a special form of wealth, which we can think of as a stock of natural capital. However, perhaps because this capital is free, we have tended to view it as limitless, abundant and always available for our use, exploitation and conversion. Capitalizing on Nature shows how modeling ecosystems as natural capital can help us to analyze the economic behavior that has led to the overuse of so much ecological wealth. It explains how this concept of ecosystem as natural capital sheds light on a number of important issues, including landscape conversion, ecological restoration, ecosystem resilience and collapse, spatial benefits and payments for ecosystem services. The book concludes by focusing on major policy challenges that need to be overcome in order to avert the worsening problem of ecological scarcity and how we can fund novel financing mechanisms for global conservation UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139014922 ER -