Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Diversity funcitons / Martin Weitzman -- Biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems : an ecological synthesis / C.S. Holling [and others] -- Scale and biodiversity in coastal and estuarine ecosystems / Robert Constanza, Michael Kemp and Walter Boynton -- Wetland valuation : three case studies / R.K. Turner [and others] -- Ecological economy : notes on harvest and growth / Gardner Brown and Jonathan Roughgarden -- Biodiversity loss and the economics of discontinuous change in semiarid rangelands / Charles Perrings and Brian W. Walker -- Economic growth and the environment / Karl-Goran Mäler -- International regulation of biodiversity decline : optional policy and evolutionary product / Timothy Swanson -- Policies to control tropical deforestation : trade interventions versus transfers / Edward B. Barbier and Michael Rauscher -- On biodiversity concerns / Scott Barrett -- Unanswered questions / Charles Perrings [et al.].

This volume reports key findings of the Biodiversity Program of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Beijer Institute. The program brought together a number of eminent ecologists and economists to consider the nature and significance of the biodiversity problem. In encouraging collaborative work between these closely related disciplines it sought to shed new light on the concept of diversity; the implications of biological diversity for the functioning of ecosystems; the driving forces behind biodiversity loss; and the options for promoting biodiversity conservation. The results of the program are surprising. It is shown that the core of the biodiversity problem is a loss of ecosystem resilience and the insurance it provides against the uncertain environmental effects of economic and population growth. This is as much a local as a global problem, implying that biodiversity conservation offers benefits that are as much local as global. The solutions as well as the causes of biodiversity loss lie in incentives to local users.