Photo credit: Fernanda Preto There’s no Wikipedia page so you can be forgiven for suspecting that I’m making it up. But Conservation Economics is actually being practiced by a bunch of serious people engaged in one of the most profound challenges of our time - averting massive losses in the diversity of Earth's life forms. So if it doesn’t exist, it’s time we brought it into being. Here goes:

Workers collecting palm oil fruit In a world of vast natural ecosystems, endlessly diverse life forms and similarly numerous threats to nature, how can people make smart choices about what to try to conserve? It takes biological expertise, to be sure, but economics is also a necessary compass to guide our efforts.

Fern-choked hillside on a lovely stretch of the Camino de Santiago. © John Reid I spent five days in December walking through Spain's Basque Country on the northern variant of the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. And also walking through the Anthropocene, a geologic era recently declared by non-geologists to describe our time, an epoch in which people shape the earth more than plate tectonics or asteroid collisions.

Conservation Strategy Fund is accepting applications for our International Economic Tools for Conservation Course! Now in it's 17th year, our flagship course will be offered August 10-21, 2015 at Stanford University.

Les invitamos a la primera presentación de resultados de las investigaciones desarrolladas en el marco del programa Investigaciones Económicas Aplicadas para la Conservación en la Amazonía Andina, diseñado para fortalecer las capacidades de investigadores de la región en la aplicación de herramientas avanzadas de análisis económico para la conservación de la biodiversidad.

CSF presenta la tercera publicación del programa Investigaciones Económicas Aplicadas para la Conservación en la Amazonía Andina:

During the two-week training, instructors from CSF, Oregon State University, the University of Brasilia, and Cambridge Resources International led an intensive schedule of lectures, exercises, and games to give participants insight into the economic drivers of environmental problems and the economic and policy tools that can lead to effective solutions. Topics included Microeconomics, Natural Resource Economics, Environmental Policy and Valuation, and Cost-Benefit Analysis. Each participant came away with a clear understanding of how these topics relate to their work in conservation, policy, and analysis.

CSF presenta las primeras dos publicaciones del programa Investigaciones Económicas Aplicadas para la Conservación en la Amazonía Andina, puedes descargarlas aqui:

John Reid, CSF President, and Mariano Castro, Deputy Minister of Environmental Management. Photo courtesy of MINAM; http://www.minam.gob.pe Lima, Peru -- This morning, CSF President John Reid signed an agreement with Peru's Ministry of Environment (MINAM) to continue work on environmental compensation in Amazonian ecosystems. At least two case studies will be conducted.