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Creating Sustainable Economies
If managed well, forests, grasslands, rivers, and oceans sustain themselves in perpetuity, and if ecological limits are respected, the resources they provide create the foundation for a sustainable economy. But if we don’t properly manage our ecosystems, they can become degraded or even disappear (see “Why is Conservation Planning Necessary”). Unfortunately, our economic system puts values on resources we can sell, such as wood, salmon, and petroleum. But other essentials such as clean air, the ozone layer, water, topsoil, biodiversity, and many others are considered "externalities," that is, outside the economy. But it is through these features that nature performs vital services, such as filtering water, pollinating flowering plants, composting vegetation, exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen, and much more. Many of these critical services could never be duplicated by human technology, yet because they are provided for free by nature, they are essentially ignored. Therefore it is imperative we acknowledge the value and protect these natural services for our health and quality of life.
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Why plan?
Ecosystems provide services such as clean water, air, and food that all life requires to survive. And they also provide the resources that drive our economies. 
