Policies

Ecosystem services in decision making: time to deliver

Background

Over the past decade, valuing and protecting ecosystem services has been promoted as a strategy to mainstream conservation globally. While the vision of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is gaining traction, a significant scientific and policy-implementation gap remains. Natural capital is often undervalued or ignored in major decisions by governments, businesses, and the public, a problem highlighted by natural disasters and crises where the loss of protective services becomes starkly apparent.

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Diverse values of nature for sustainability

Background

Despite 25 years of progress in valuing ecosystem services, a global biodiversity crisis persists, underpinned by a "values crisis." Current policies and decisions often prioritize a narrow subset of market-based instrumental values, ignoring the diverse ways people relate to and benefit from nature. This paper, based on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment, synthesizes over 50,000 sources to address this gap.

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The changing global carbon cycle: linking plant–soil carbon dynamics to global consequences

Background

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Addressing critiques refines global estimates of reforestation potential for climate change mitigation

Background

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Towards more effective integration of tropical forest restoration and conservation

Background

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REDD’ing Forest Conservation: The Philippine Predicament

Background

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Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels

Background

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Against political ecology

Background

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Violent enclosures, violated livelihoods: environmental and military territoriality in a Philippine frontier

Background

Historically, agrarian change in the Philippines involved shifts in land enclosure, from colonial and church usurpation to capitalist intensification and protected areas, sparking peasant resistance and the rise of insurgent groups like the New People's Army (NPAs). Currently, in Palawan, military operations against the NPA often conflate peasants and insurgents. These military actions converge with conservation in national park buffer zones, creating restrictive and politically charged spaces for indigenous groups like the Tagbanua. Authorities frequently stigmatize their traditional land use as criminal, such as swidden farming.

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Hope for Threatened Tropical Biodiversity: Lessons from the Philippines

Background

Open access copy available
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