incentives. protocols and best practices for such eias may have to be drawn up taking into account the work done in the area of ascribing monetary values to the costs of threats to ecosystem and biodiversity and the benefits from such ecosystem services and biodiversity. i would like to take this opportunity to draw attention to hon ’ ble union finance minister ’ s budget speech for 2010 – 11, in which he announced a number of measures for addressing environment / climate change issues and preserving biodiversity. i am sure all concerned will take advantage of these announcements, actively support and involve in the initiatives for protecting ecosystems and preserving biodiversity. finally, i would like to close with a quote from the speech that hon ’ ble prime minister dr. manmohan singh delivered on june 30, 2008 while formally launching india ’ s national action plan on climate change : “ india has a civilizational legacy which treats nature as a source of nurture and not as a dark force to be conquered and harnessed to human endeavour. there is a high value placed in our culture to the concept of living in harmony with nature, recognizing the delicate threads of common destiny that hold our universe together. the time has come for us to draw deep from this tradition and launch india and its billion people on a path of ecologically sustainable development ”. it gives me great pleasure to inaugurate this teeb d2 workshop and wish it all success. thank you.

these concepts into decision - making on investment projects and use of natural resources – whether in the public or private sectors? what should be the policy framework, and consequently the regulatory framework, to implement these policies? i find that the national biodiversity action plan published by government of india, ministry of environment and forests in 2008 highlights as an action point the valuation of goods and services provided by biodiversity and use of economic instruments in decision making processes. more specifically, the action plan states to assign appropriate market value to the goods and services provided by various ecosystems and strive to incorporate these costs into decision making, management and sustainable utilization of biological diversity resources. to factor - in natural resource accounting ( nra ) in the national economic planning processes and encourage financial institutions to adopt appropriate nra appraisal practices so that risks to biological diversity are adequately considered in the financing of projects. this clearly puts in perspective the significance of assigning value to natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystem services in economic policy. so, what are biodiversity and ecosystem services and why and how do we measure their value? wikipedia defines biodiversity as the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or on the entire earth. biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. the biodiversity found on earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species. many biologists now believe that ecosystems rich in diversity gain greater resilience and are, therefore, able to recover more readily from stresses such as drought or human - induced habitat degradation. possibly, the greatest value of the variety of life may be the opportunities it gives us for adapting to change. the unknown potential of genes, species and ecosystems is of inestimable. but certainly of high value. genetic diversity will enable breeders to tailor crops to new climatic conditions. the earth ’ s biota is likely to hold still undiscovered cures for known and emerging diseases. a multiplicity of genes, species, and ecosystems is a resource that can be tapped as human needs change. almost all scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinction occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction rates. the factors that threaten biodiversity have been variously categorized. jared diamond describes an “ evil quartet ” of habitat destruction, overkill, introduced species, and secondary extensions. the iucn has a detailed list of direct threats to biodiversity. humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. collectively,