Discuss the event on the London or Nature Opinion forum. The latter also contains several topics on evolution and Darwin 200

We pay for our food, water, healthcare and energy, so why not pay for the many ‘services’ currently obtained for free from biological diversity? Services such as insect-pollination, central to food production; or healthy forests, which we need for clean water and to stop soil erosion. Shouldn’t we invest now in our biodiversity in order to secure our future needs? Join leading names from science and politics as they debate the need to put a price on the Earth’s ecosystem services.

PANEL
• James Lovelock, independent scientist & author of Revenge of Gaia:" Prof James Lovelock is the author of more than 200 scientific papers, distributed almost equally among topics in medicine, biology, instrument and atmospheric science and geophysiology. He is the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory) and has written four books on the subject, including “The Revenge of Gaia” (2006). His latest book is “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: a final warning”, published this year. He is also the inventor of the electron capture detector, which made possible the detection of CFCs and other atmospheric nano-pollutants. Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974 and made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen in 2003. He has been since 1994 an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford.
• Michael Meacher, MP (Labour) & former Minister of State for the Environment: Michael Meacher is a British Labour party politician and Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton. Meacher is also a long-time campaigner for the environment within party and government. A staunch advocate of renewable energy, he was Minister of State for the Environment between 1997 and 2003. During this time, he played an important role in international negotiations over the Kyoto Treaty and helped pass the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which secured greater protection for Britain’s wildlife areas. He is a Parliamentary representative and member of UNISON.
• Sir Crispin Tickell, Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University: As a former British diplomat, he was Chef de Cabinet to the President of the European Commission, Ambassador to Mexico, Permanent Secretary of the Overseas Development Administration (now DFID), and British Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was then Warden of Green College, Oxford, and Chancellor of the University of Kent, and has since had other public and academic appointments. He has advised successive British Prime Ministers on environmental issues, and was the author of “Climate Change and World Affairs” (1977 and 1986). He has since published other work on the same and related issues, including conservation of biodiversity.

Chair:
• Ehsan Masood, Acting Chief Commissioning Editor, Nature: Ehsan Masood returned to the staff of Nature as Acting Chief Commissioning Editor in September 2008. He was UK news and developing-world correspondent at Nature in the 1990s. After leaving Nature in 1999, he became Opinion Editor at New Scientist and then Director of Communications for the environmental leadership training NGO Lead International. He has also worked as a consultant to the British Council, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He teaches international science policy at Imperial College London and his next book, Science and Islam: a history, will be published by Icon books in 2009.

Organized by Nature, the leading international weekly journal of science, in association with Kings Place.