Scientists Warn Restoration-based Environmental Markets May Not Improve Ecosystem Health

[Staff]

Scientists Warn Restoration-based Environmental Markets May Not Improve Ecosystem Health

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2009) — While policymakers across of the globe are relying on environmental restoration projects to fuel emerging market-based environmental programs, an article in the July 31 edition of Science by two noted ecologists warns that these programs still lack the scientific certainty needed to ensure that restoration projects deliver the environmental improvements being marketed.

Scientists Warn Restoration-based Environmental Markets May Not Improve Ecosystem Health
excerpt from above:

Markets identify the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, called ecosystem services, and associate them with economic values which can be bought, sold or traded. The scientists, Dr. Margaret Palmer and Dr. Solange Filoso of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, raise concerns that there is insufficient scientific understanding of the restoration process, namely, how to alter a landscape or coastal habitat to achieve the environmental benefits that are marketed.

"Both locally and nationally, policymakers are considering market-based environmental restoration programs where the science does not yet conclusively show that environment health will improve once the 'restoration' is completed," said Dr. Palmer. "These programs may very well make economic sense, but the jury is still out whether or not the local environment will ultimately benefit."

[jpdenk]

I'd like to know how they're defining "Ecosystem health". There's no question that restoration work improves species diversity, and that seems to be equated with ecosystem health in the minds of most people.

John

[Equilibrium]

Oh. You shouldn't be asking trick questions like that.

[jpdenk]

I did a little Google searching on these two researchers. They're mainly involved with aquatic coastal ecosystems, from what I can see, so what they're saying should be applied only to that aspect of restoration.

I think.

John