Biodiversity in general, and agro-biodiversity in particular, is the basis for human survival. We are strongly dependent on ecosystem services provided freely by nature and its biodiversity, especially in terms of food and revenue. Many of these services are public goods, and as such they do not have a market price. As a result, their loss is often not detected by our current market system.

A variety of pressures resulting from population growth, changing diets, urbanization, and climate change is causing additional strain on ecosystem conservation (e.g. farm land from cleared forests), and this contributes to accelerating ecosystem degradation and biodiversity decline. The awareness on loss of biodiversity and the conflicting uses of environmental services underline the need for a well thought-out management of natural resource utilization in sensitive areas, accounting for both, environmental and basic human needs.

It is, therefore, increasingly important to draw attention to the global social and economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to draw together expertise from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions moving forward.