ABSTRACT
The primary focus of this chapter is conservation benefits and investments. The benefits provided by conservation are often measured in terms of the values they have to humans. Although these benefits are often difficult to quantify, techniques exist to estimate their value in monetary terms. For the purpose of this discussion in this text, we define conservation as simply the practice of the conservation ethic, which advocates management of natural resources for the purpose of sustaining biodiversity in species, ecosystems, the evolutionary process, and human culture and society (Bowen, 1999; Hunter, 1996; Soule and Soule, 1986; van Dyke, 2008; Wake and Vrendenburg, 2008). Properly managed conservation lands serve many important biological and ecological functions such as the production of plant and animal species, provision of clean water, carbon storage, and scenic amenities. Many studies have estimated values for ecosystem services at specific locations.
