Rio+20 (15/06/2012) – Jaime Webbe, Consultant at the UNCBD offers us a warning that the ecosystems we expect to help protect us from climate change, will be impacted by the very thing they are supposed to help us adapt to.

She says we tend to undervalue our ecosystems and biodiversity and that we take for granted that what is there will always be there and will always provide us with the same services – but research now shows this is not going to be the case.

While some values of our ecosystems – for example the timber value of a forest – are easy to assess, others are much harder and Webbe says much more work is needed on working out the value of these complex systems that our natural environment provides for us.