Conservation of Ecosystem- Environment & Ecology Topic. EDEN IAS. Conservation is everybody’s business Introduction Valuation of ecosystem benefits is key to making firms and the masses know that conservation is critical to their survival. For a large component of the business and civil society in India and the developing world, the concerns of growth and short-term profits are so large that very often the policy-making machinery becomes oblivious to the broader ecological concerns of biodiversity conservation. Businesses inextricably depend on biodiversity through a well-defined supply-chain, whose recognition is obscure in the public domain. Rather, a large component of policy making, business, and citizenry look at biological conservation as an “ethical” and a “value judgmental” concern. Till a point in time, many big conservation NGOs put across an ecological argument to justify conservation goals. But in most cases, the argument moved asymptotically with the human interface of the biological system. That is why the communications from these NGOs have always been taken as something external to the fundamental human existence. Therefore, the societal approach is: as conscientious human beings, committed to value systems that teach us to respect life on earth, we should think of conservation. This implies that conservation is not thought of being the core of business. The accrual of knowledge and scientific understanding at the interface of nature, economy and society, ever since the 1980s and 1990s, started changing this perception in the developed world. Since the Club of Rome’s prediction of “apocalypse” in its ‘The Limits to Growth’ thesis, the human response to the “approaching doomsday” has been characterised by extensive research, gradual knowledge accrual through global assessments, and conventions. The Earth Summit of 1992 adopted the Brundtland Commission Report’s definition of “sustainable development”, and the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) became effective from December 1993. With CBD, for the first time, the framework of international law recognised conservation of biological diversity as an integral part of the development process. Ecosystem services On the scientific front, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) of 2005 enhanced human understanding of the fact that the ecosystem functions in its own inimitable ways to provide ecosystem services (benefits) to society in the form of provisioning services (food, raw materials, genetic resources, water, etc), regulating services (carbon sequestration and climate regulation), cultural services (tourism and religion), and above all, supporting services that are necessary for production of all other ecosystem services (nutrient recycling and soil formation, among others). The proper delineation of “ecosystem services” helped in understanding the direct linkage between human society and biodiversity: for every bit of existence of human society, there is a critical need for the biodiversity as a “stock” to exist, to ensure the “flow” of these ecosystem services. Lately, the recognition of biodiversity conservation has become extremely important from the perspective of treating the biodiversity as “natural capital”. While new investment can lead to addition in capital stock thereby raising production, investment in “natural capital” can help in sustaining the good health of the ecosystem and its services. For further reading click on the given link below https://www.edenias.com/conservation-is-everybodys-business/ For lectures check EDEN IAS Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eden+ias Current affairs for IAS Mains Examination. Answer writing content for UPSC Mains Examination. GS Paper III.