We estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on a synthesis of published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which is outside the market) is estimated to be in the range of $16 -54 trillion/yr., with an average of $33 trillion/yr. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, this must be considered a minimum estimate. Global GNP is around $18 trillion/yr.The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the earth's life support system. They contribute significantly to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent a significant portion of the total economic value of the planet. Because these services are not fully captured in markets or adequately quantified in terms comparable with economic services and manufactured capital, they are often given too little weight in policy decisions. This neglect may ultimately compromise the sustainability of humans in the biosphere. The economies of the earth would grind to a halt without the services of ecological life support systems, so in one sense their total value to the economy is infinite. However, it is instructive to estimate the "incremental" or "marginal" value of ecosystem services -the estimated rate of change of value with changes in ecosystem services from their current levels. There have been many studies in the last few decades aimed at estimating the value of a wide variety of ecosystem services. We synthesized this large (but scattered) literature and present it in a form useful for ecologists, economists, policy makers, and the general public. From this synthesis, we estimated values for ecosystem services per unit area by biome, and then multiplied by the total area of each biome and summed over all services and biomes.While acknowledging the many conceptual and empirical problems inherent in producing such an estimate, we think this exercise is essential in order to (1) make the range of potential values of the services of ecosystems more apparent; (2) establish at least a first approximation of the relative magnitude of global ecosystem services; (3) set up a framework for their further

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