We rely on the oceans to provide abundant fish, on forests for wood and new medicines, on insects to pollinate our crops, on birds and frogs to keep pests in check, and on rivers to supply clean water. We expect that when we need timber we can harvest it, that when we need new crops we can find them in nature, that when we drill a well we will find water, that the wastes we generate will disappear, that clean air will blow in to refresh our cities, and that the climate will be stable and predictable. Yet economies unwittingly provide incentives to misuse and destroy nature by underappreciating and undervaluing its services. Nature in turn is increasingly less able to supply the services that the earth's expanding population and economy demands. It is not an exaggeration to state that the continued loss of nature's services threatens not only today's human enterprise, but ultimately the prospects for our continued existence.
Nature is viewed as a boundless and inexhaustible resource and sink.
Human impact is seen as insignificant or beneficial. The very tools used to gauge the economic health and progress of a nation can reinforce and encourage these attitudes. The unhealthy dynamic is compounded by the fact that activities that pollute or deplete natural capital are counted as contributions to economic well-being. Nature's ecosystem services include producing raw materials, purifying and regulating water, absorbing and decomposing wastes, cycling nutrients, creating and maintaining soils, providing pollination and pest control, and regulating local and global climates. Forests, for example, do much more than supply timber.