Why shouldn't people who deplete our natural assets have to pay, and those who protect them reap profits? Conservation-minded entrepreneurs and others around the world are beginning to ask just that question, as the increasing scarcity of natural resources becomes a tangible threat to our own lives and our hopes for our children. The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the world's leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, to offer an engaging and informative look at a new "new economy" — a system recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the potential profits in protecting them.

Through engaging stories from around the world, the authors introduce readers to a diverse group of people who are pioneering new approaches to conservation. We meet Adam Davis, an American business executive who dreams of establishing a market for buying and selling "ecosystem service units; " John Wamsley, a former math professor in Australia who has found a way to play the stock market and protect native species at the same time; and Dan Janzen, a biologist working in Costa Rica who devised a controversial plan to sell a conservation area's natural waste-disposal services to a local orange juice producer. Readers also visit the Catskill Mountains, where the City of New York purchased undeveloped land instead of building an expensive new water treatment facility; and King County, Washington, where county executive Ron Sims has dedicated himself to finding ways of "making the market move" to protect the county's remaining open space.

Daily and Ellison describe the dynamic interplay of science, economics, business, and politics thatis involved in establishing these new approaches and examine what will be needed to create successful models and lasting institutions for conservation. The New Economy of Nature presents a fundamentally new way of thinking about the environment and about the economy, and with its fascinating portraits of charismatic pioneers, it is as entertaining as it is informative.

Accepting that the rich now hold the environment hostage, and will only allow it to be saved if we make it worth their while, Daily (interdisciplinary science, Stanford U.) and journalist Ellison explain ways to reconstruct the natural world into goods and services, determine market values for each, and make sure everyone pays their share.
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The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the world's leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, to offer an informative look at a new "new economy" — a system recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the potential profits in protecting them.

Through engaging stories from around the world, the authors introduce readers to a diverse group of people who are pioneering new approaches to conservation. They describe the dynamic interplay of science, economics, business, and politics that is involved in establishing these new approaches and examine what will be needed to create successful models and lasting insti tutions for conservation.

Gretchen C. Daily is Bing Interdisciplinary Research Scientist at Stanford University. She is author of more than 90 articles and the editor of one of the most widely cited publications in modern environmental science, "Nature's Services" (Island Press, 1997), and has been recognized as a "Role Model for Ecology's Generation X" by Science magazine.

Katherine Ellison is an investigative journalist and veteran foreign correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers, who has reported from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The recipient of a number of journalism prizes, including the George Polk Award and the Overseas Press Club Award, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a series in the San Jose Mercury News that became the basis for "Imelda: Steel Butterfly of the Philippines"(McGraw-Hill, 1988).

Contents

Prologue

The Wealth of Nature

Chapter One

Katoomba and

the Stratosphere

Chapter Two

How to Make

Carbon Charismatic

Chapter Three

New York: How to Put

a Watershed to Work

Chapter Four

Napa, California: How a

Town Can Live with a River

and Not Get Soaked

Chapter Five

Vancouver Island:

Project Snark

Chapter Six

King County, Washington:

The Art of the Deal

Chapter Seven

Down Under:

How to Make a Numbat

Turn a Profit

Chapter Eight

Costa Rica:

Paying Mother Nature

to Multitask

Chapter Nine

Teresopolis:

The Spinning Motor

Chapter Ten

The Birds, the Bees, and the

Biodiversity Crisis

Epilogue

The Revolution in the Wings

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

Index