Sir

It is true that we can divide the environment up into services that can be priced as discussed in your News Feature “Dollars and sense” (Nature 437, 614–616; 2005), even the most sacred. However, there is little evidence that economically sound management systems in themselves engender sustainable utilization. We are frequently reminded of this by bulletins on the state of the world's native forests or by the collapse in several UK offshore fisheries.

Economically driven management systems often seem to lack the qualities of care and close monitoring that are needed in looking after the rare, vulnerable and endemic. How we manage our environment may be a more fruitful question to ask than why. Revenue from state-run protected areas must be both administered transparently and captured locally: these were rated the most important lessons for sustainability at a 1994 conference on development of protected area strategies for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

Similarly, local ‘ownership’ of natural resources and disincentives to cheat may be prerequisites for their long-term sustainable use, as the exemplary state of the Falkland Island fisheries reminds us.

Good interpretation of scientific values and respect for our living heritage also encourage local investment (in the larger sense of the word) in the environment. They are surely as important as economic returns in promoting long-term sustainable use of ecosystem services and the protection of biodiversity.