The findings of the MEA and the Millennium Development Goals not only discourage putting development and biodiversity conservation in separate boxes but also strongly urge impact assessment professionals, decision makers, donor agencies, economists, natural resource managers to take into account the links between ecosystems, economic benefits and development. Biodiversity conservation based on wider recognition of the ecosystem services concept and economic valuation of impacts requires major adaptation of EA framework. The course presents the rationale for promoting ecosystem approach, enhancing the use of economic instruments for valuation of ecosystem services and to apply the learning from best practice models to promote sustainable development.

The training programme has been designed to cover the following main elements:

• Relevance of valuing ecosystem goods and services in impact assessment.

• Importance of integrating economic valuation approach in biodiversity inclusive impact assessment.

• Re-tooling the generic EA framework for integrating economic evaluation approaches for assessing impacts of economic development on biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods.

• Introduction to a range of economic tools and techniques for valuing biodiversity.

• Introduction to regulatory and market-based mechanisms for integrating biodiversity into mitigation approaches.