ABSTRACT
Biodiversity provides a range of ecosystem services that support livelihoods and underpin the global and local economy. The examples in this book show how often these values go unrecognized in the markets and in decision making by policy makers, administrators, businesses and individuals. Because nature is almost invisible in the choices we make at every level, we have been steadily drawing down our natural capital – without understanding either what it really costs to replace services provided free by nature or that man-made alternative solutions are sometimes far too expensive for these services to be replaced or substituted.
