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The Valuation Conundrum
Valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is considered essential to formulate policies for sustainable development. But monetary valuation of BES reinforces the prevalent science-policy relationships that have led to the erosion of biodiversity. The livestock sector with multiple ecosystem services, valued for its contribution to the economy, strong policy and programme agendas, livestock breeding and maintenance sciences is used to illustrate the science-policy interface and the choices made for livestock improvement and for livestock biodiversity.
We are grateful for comments from the workshop on financialisation of nature, University of Sussex, United Kingdom (19â20 March 2015); brainstorming on dryland livestock systems, IIC, New Delhi (14 January 2015); panel on valuing variability, CBA 9, Nairobi (277–29 April 2015); and to Nitya Ghotge, S L Goswami, P Ramasundaram, Sabyasachi Das, Saverio Kratli, Ced Hess, A Ravindra, P S Vijayshankar and Jagdeesh Rao.