COLLEGE STATION Emerging ecosystems markets will be the topic for a meeting Feb. 27 in Houston.
“Ecosystem Service Markets: Everybody’s Business” will be held at the Westin Galleria Hotel. Academic and industry leaders, government officials and landowners are invited to attend.
The conference aims to help society find practical ways, through marketplace incentives, to protect ecosystems, organizers said.
“This most important and timely conference serves as a necessary convening of the individuals, organizations and stake holders who would be most impacted by market-based trading of environmental services,” said Texas Forest Service director James B. Hull.
“Sustainable development,” is increasingly a national issue as ecosystems become more fragmented through construction of new buildings and housing, conference organizers explained.
Healthy ecosystems are economically important because wetlands purify water and assimilate wastes, estuaries mitigate the impact of storms and floods, and forests provide timber and fiber, Hull noted. All of this helps stabilize the climate and provide habitat for plants and animals, he said.
“The idea of marketing ecosystem services is still a new frontier, and the innovators making it work come from a mix of private industry, non-profit organizations, academia and public agencies,” said Dr. Neal Wilkins, director of the Texas A&M Institute for Renewable Natural Resources. “This conference gathers the experts and innovators in the development for market-based programs for conserving natural resources.”
Featured presenters will include Dr. J. B. Ruhl of Florida State University College of Law, Dr. James Salzman of Duke University Law School and Dr. Geoffrey Heal of Columbia University. They will lead discussions on landowner incentives to protect natural resources.
For more information and to register, go to http://tfsweb.tamu.edu/ecoserv/.
Cooperating sponsors of the conference are the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, Greater Houston Partnership, Texas A&M Institute of Renewable Natural Resources, Conservation Capital, Ltd., Houston Advanced Research Center, and the Texas Forest Service.
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