This post is by Professor Diane Coyle and Dr Matthew Agarwala. The article was originally published on the Bennett Institute for Public Policy’s blog.

The UK government commissioned independent review on the Economics of Biodiversity, by our Cambridge colleague Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, is a landmark. Launched on the 2 February it sets out forcefully the imperative for action to halt, and reverse, a catastrophic decline in biodiversity over recent decades. The case it makes is a pragmatic one. Many people will agree there is a moral case for humanity to be good stewards of the rest of nature, but the review’s point is that the economic case is powerful too; ethics and economics are not separate.