Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Nature: the many benefits of ecosystem services

Nature volume 443, page 749 (2006)Cite this article

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Sir

In his Commentary “Selling out on nature” (Nature 443, 27–28; 2006), Douglas J. McCauley dismisses the importance of ecosystem services as a tool in conservation and resource management. The author correctly notes that market-based approaches to conservation are no panacea, as has also been concluded by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis, Island Press, Washington DC, 2005). But he goes on to conclude that there is no value in factoring ecosystem services into decision-making, and that indeed they represent a harmful diversion from a more traditional focus on the intrinsic and aesthetic values of nature. We, the assessment panel of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, believe that these conclusions result from three errors in reasoning.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Conservation and Science Program, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 300 Second Street, Los Altos, 94022, California, USA

    Walter V. Reid

Authors
  1. Walter V. Reid
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Harold A. Mooney
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Doris Capistrano
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Stephen R. Carpenter
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Kanchan Chopra
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Angela Cropper
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Partha Dasgupta
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Rashid Hassan
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Rik Leemans
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Robert M. May
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Prabhu Pingali
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Cristián Samper
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Robert Scholes
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Robert T. Watson
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  15. A. H. Zakri
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Zhao Shidong
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reid, W., Mooney, H., Capistrano, D. et al. Nature: the many benefits of ecosystem services. Nature 443, 749 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/443749a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/443749a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing