ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the two disciplines, ecology and economics, have traditionally approached the biodiversity problem. It looks at each discipline in turn, particularly developments that would suggest a convergence in approach and addresses the issue of whether a single-disciplinary approach is sufficient for tackling the biodiversity problem. Ecological resources and services of value to humans are produced and sustained by ecosystems. Ecological indicators of ecosystem health and resilience are helpful in the efforts to avoid thresholds, limits and system collapses. A life supporting ecosystem is the functional term for the continuous interactions between organisms, populations, communities, and their physical and chemical environment. Economic approaches that view biodiversity loss as a problem of ecological scarcity are relatively new. The recognition of the biodiversity and ecological scarcity problem as an important new challenge for economics has been coupled with a fundamental ‘rethinking’ of the environment as a form of natural capital that supports economic activity.
