Ecosystem services and conservation biologists - the means and the end

William M. Adams and Kent H. Redford, on one side, and Matt Skroch and Laura López-Hoffman, on the other, publicly disagree on the effects of applying the concept of ecosystem services to biological conservation. But when you read their papers it is evident that while they disagree on the means - how to account for the true value of biodiversity and ecosystems - they agree on the end. And the end is not to advance human welfare:

There is much we agree on. They [Skroch and López-Hoffman] close with a sentence that could have been the abstract for our [Redford and Adams] editorial: "it is now our responsibility to ensure that these new tools are used in ways that we intended; namely, to protect the diversity of life on Earth."