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Ram Pandit

Bio: Ram Pandit is an academic researcher from University of Western Australia. The author has contributed to research in topics: Food security & Willingness to pay. The author has an hindex of 22, co-authored 82 publications receiving 2319 citations. Previous affiliations of Ram Pandit include Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation & University of Stirling.


Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the rationale for the inclusive valuation of nature's contributions to people (NCP) in decision making, as well as broad methodological steps for doing so, and argue that transformative practices aiming at sustainable futures would benefit from embracing such diversity, which require recognizing and addressing power relationships across stakeholder groups that hold different values on human nature-relations and NCP.

985 citations

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TL;DR: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is seeking to prepare for losses arising from climate change as discussed by the authors, which is an emerging issue that challenges climate science and policy to engage more deeply with values, places, and people's experiences.
Abstract: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is seeking to prepare for losses arising from climate change. This is an emerging issue that challenges climate science and policy to engage more deeply with values, places, and people's experiences. We first provide insight into the UNFCCC framing of loss and damage and current approaches to valuation. We then draw on the growing literature on value- and place-based approaches to adaptation, including limits to adaptation, which examines loss as nuanced and sensitive to the nature of people's lives. Complementary perspectives from human geography, psychology, philosophy, economics, and ecology underscore the importance of understanding what matters to people and what they may likely consider to constitute loss. A significant body of knowledge illustrates that loss is often given meaning through lived, embodied, and place-based experiences, and so is more felt than tangible. We end with insights into recent scholarship that addresses how people make trade-offs between different value priorities. This emerging literature offers an opening in the academic debate to further advance a relational framing of loss in which trade-offs between lived values are seen as dynamic elements in a prospective loss space. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

141 citations

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TL;DR: This paper used a meta-regression analysis to determine how much of the variation in willingness to pay reflects true differences across the population and how much is due to study design, such as survey design and administration, and model specification.

122 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a statistical model that produces specific estimates of the electricity savings generated by shade-producing trees in a suburban environment, and found that tree shading generally is associated with reduced (increased) electricity consumption in the summertime (wintertime).

112 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the history leading up to these publications and the subsequent debates, research, institutions, policies, on-the-ground actions, and controversies they triggered.
Abstract: It has been 20 years since two seminal publications about ecosystem services came out: an edited book by Gretchen Daily and an article in Nature by a group of ecologists and economists on the value of the world’s ecosystem services. Both of these have been very highly cited and kicked off an explosion of research, policy, and applications of the idea, including the establishment of this journal. This article traces the history leading up to these publications and the subsequent debates, research, institutions, policies, on-the-ground actions, and controversies they triggered. It also explores what we have learned during this period about the key issues: from definitions to classification to valuation, from integrated modelling to public participation and communication, and the evolution of institutions and governance innovation. Finally, it provides recommendations for the future. In particular, it points to the weakness of the mainstream economic approaches to valuation, growth, and development. It concludes that the substantial contributions of ecosystem services to the sustainable wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature should be at the core of the fundamental change needed in economic theory and practice if we are to achieve a societal transformation to a sustainable and desirable future.

1,514 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
19 Jan 2018-Science
TL;DR: The notion of nature's contributions to people (NCP) was introduced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as mentioned in this paper, a joint global effort by governments, academia, and civil society to assess and promote knowledge of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystems and their contribution to human societies.
Abstract: A major challenge today and into the future is to maintain or enhance beneficial contributions of nature to a good quality of life for all people. This is among the key motivations of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a joint global effort by governments, academia, and civil society to assess and promote knowledge of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystems and their contribution to human societies in order to inform policy formulation. One of the more recent key elements of the IPBES conceptual framework ( 1 ) is the notion of nature's contributions to people (NCP), which builds on the ecosystem service concept popularized by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) ( 2 ). But as we detail below, NCP as defined and put into practice in IPBES differs from earlier work in several important ways. First, the NCP approach recognizes the central and pervasive role that culture plays in defining all links between people and nature. Second, use of NCP elevates, emphasizes, and operationalizes the role of indigenous and local knowledge in understanding nature's contribution to people.

1,470 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors synthesize knowledge and methods to classify and value ecosystem services for urban planning and identify analytical challenges for valuation to inform urban planning in the face of high heterogeneity and fragmentation characterizing urban ecosystems.

1,264 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the rationale for the inclusive valuation of nature's contributions to people (NCP) in decision making, as well as broad methodological steps for doing so, and argue that transformative practices aiming at sustainable futures would benefit from embracing such diversity, which require recognizing and addressing power relationships across stakeholder groups that hold different values on human nature-relations and NCP.

985 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
13 Dec 2019-Science
TL;DR: The first integrated global-scale intergovernmental assessment of the status, trends, and future of the links between people and nature provides an unprecedented picture of the extent of the authors' mutual dependence, the breadth and depth of the ongoing and impending crisis, and the interconnectedness among sectors and regions.
Abstract: The human impact on life on Earth has increased sharply since the 1970s, driven by the demands of a growing population with rising average per capita income. Nature is currently supplying more materials than ever before, but this has come at the high cost of unprecedented global declines in the extent and integrity of ecosystems, distinctness of local ecological communities, abundance and number of wild species, and the number of local domesticated varieties. Such changes reduce vital benefits that people receive from nature and threaten the quality of life of future generations. Both the benefits of an expanding economy and the costs of reducing nature's benefits are unequally distributed. The fabric of life on which we all depend-nature and its contributions to people-is unravelling rapidly. Despite the severity of the threats and lack of enough progress in tackling them to date, opportunities exist to change future trajectories through transformative action. Such action must begin immediately, however, and address the root economic, social, and technological causes of nature's deterioration.

913 citations