Ecological Resilience in the Sustainability of Economic Development

Abstract

This paper considers how biodiversity and ecological resilience relates to the sustainability of economic development. It is argued that maintenance of ecosystem stability is necessary to satisfy the basic criterion of sustainable economic development -that the value of the capital stock should be non-declining. Since ecological resilience is a measure of ecosystem stability, loss of resilience implies reduced ecosystem stability. Loss of resilience does not necessarily mean that economic development will be unsustainable, but it increases the probability that this will be so. It also increases the burden on environmental management.