The Ramsar Convention has long recognized the importance of wetland economic valuation in contributing to well-informed planning and decision-making, and in 1997 the Secretariat published Economic valuation of wetlands: A guide for policy makers and planners by Barbier, Acreman, and Knowler. But economic valuation of ecosystems is a rapidly developing discipline, and there are now many different methods available for undertaking different aspects and purposes of wetland valuation.

In order to assist Contracting Parties in having economic valuation information better available for decision-making o­n wetlands, Ramsar’s COP8 (Valencia, 2002) requested the STRP to prepare guidance o­n practical methods for wetland valuation.
The resulting report, the preparation of which has been led by Rudolf de Groot and Mishka Stuip of Wageningen University and the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) in the Netherlands, provides this guidance and updates information o­n available methodologies from those in the 1997 book. Valuing wetlands: Guidance for valuing the benefits derived from wetland ecosystem services is now available in PDF format (1.6MB), published jointly as Ramsar Technical Report No. 3 and as No. 27 in the Convention o­n Biological Diversity’s CBD Technical Series.

Source: website of the Ramsar Convention

Updated on 11/29/2006 12:36:21 PM.