Restoring Nature's Capital: Sustaining Ecosystem Services

Using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as its backdrop, Restoring Nature's Capital proposes action steps for business, governments and civil society to reverse ecosystem degradation.

The authors argue that governance -- who makes decisions, how they are made, and with what information -- is at the heart of sustaining healthy ecosystems.

With this as their fundamental tenet, they present recommendations for reversing degradation of ecosystems and sustaining their capacity to provide vital services for generations to come. The action agenda identifies how decisions about development projects and investments can be made in ways that lead to healthy ecosystem services.

These decisions, made by local and national governments, corporations, and international financial institutions, involve billions of dollars, affect huge swaths of land and water, and affect millions of people.