Scientists Determine Dollar Value for Ecosystems

Jason - very useful seed. Several years ago Balmford et al in a key paper in Science (actually a very important issue of that top journal with an outstanding editorial and an outstanding environmental assessment from the head of the AAAS) made estimates of the total economic value of Wild Nature.

Thus see the Science Blog summary of the estimate by Balmford et al of an annual total economic value of Wild Nature of about US$38 trillion (noting that the 2003 summed world GDPs totaled about US$55 trillion) and that the benefit from saving what remains of Wild Nature would exceed the destructively exploitative benefit by a factor of over 100 to 1:

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/G/2002038.html .

The reference for Balmford et al "Economic reasons for preserving wild nature" is Science, 2002, vol. 297, pp 950-953; for their paper see:

http://www.envirosecurity.org/conference/working/ReasonsConservWildNature.pdf

For some other key references and arguments in this area (notably Costanza et al The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital, Nature vol. 387, 253-260, 1997):

http://www.wilderness.net/library/documents/aug03_kormos_martin.pdf .