The Earth Debates are being organized by the UK's Natural History Museum, in partnership with the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future and the British Council. Through a series of four debates, a panel of leading experts, chaired by Richard Black, the BBC's environment correspondent, will tackle key issues at the heart of the green economy agenda of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20). The debates will be webcast live from the Museum. The first debate is on the topic “Ecosystem economics – can we put a price on nature?” Considering that tools for calculating and valuing some natural services are now being developed and are already influencing global environmental policy, this debate will focus on the strengths and risks of this emerging understanding, as well as on the extent to which the new economics of ecosystem services will change attitudes towards sustainable development.
date: 25 January 2012 location: virtual www: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/biodiversity/earth-debates/value-of-nature/index.html