Gretchen Daily


Gretchen C. Daily is the Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, the director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Her main research interests include biogeography, conservation biology and ecology. Daily is also a co-founder of the Natural Capital Project, a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Daily is a board member at the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics and the Nature Conservancy.

Education

Daily received her B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University in 1986. She then went on to earn her M.S. in biological sciences at Stanford University in 1987 and received her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University in 1992.

Career

In 1992, Daily was awarded the Winslow/Heinz Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group. In 1995 Daily became a Bing Interdisciplinary Research Scientist in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. During her time as a research scientist, Daily served as the editor for Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems, which provides examples of the benefits that ecosystems can provide for societies and ideas for how to quantify the value of these services. The Heinz Foundation noted that Nature's Services "has served as a model for ecosystems regulation in several regions of the world and was a catalyst for the U.N.'s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment." After 7 years as a research scientist, Daily was appointed as an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and as a senior fellow at the Institute of International Studies in 2002. In 2002, Daily also co-wrote the book The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable with Katherine Ellison.
In 2005, Daily was appointed as the Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and was made the director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. As of 2013, Daily still holds all three of these positions.
In 2005, Daily, along with partners at The Nature Conservancy, the University of Minnesota, and the World Wildlife Fund, established the Natural Capital Project. The organization's stated goal is to "improve the state of biodiversity and human well-being by motivating greater and more cost-effective investments in both." As one of the directors of the Natural Capital Project, Daily "serves as chief emissary to financial and government leaders." In 2006, Daily became a member of the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy. Daily served as the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in Sustainability Studies at the University of Cambridge in 2013.

Research

Daily's academic profile at the Center for Conservation Biology states that "Daily’s scientific research is on countryside biogeography and the future dynamics of biodiversity change." In an interview, Daily remarked that "'Countryside biogeography' is a new conceptual framework for elucidating the fates of populations, species, and ecosystems in ‘countryside’ – the growing fraction of Earth's unbuilt land surface whose ecosystem qualities are strongly influenced by humanity."
Using findings from research done in countryside biogeography, Daily, and researchers like her, is attempting to determine what "species are most important and most merit protection" and "what is the scientific basis for deciding" the relative importance of species within a given ecosystem. When asked "which species/systems most merit protection?" Daily responded that she is "actively attempting to link projected changes in biodiversity and ecosystems to changes in 'services' to humanity." She went on to cite "production of goods," "life-support processes," "life-fulfilling conditions" and "options " as the services that ecosystems/species provide for humans.
As one of the co-founders of the Natural Capital Project, Daily employs her research practically by working "with private landowners, economists, lawyers, business people, and government agencies to incorporate environmental issues into business practice and public policy."

Author

''Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems reviews''

Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems was published in 1997 by Island Press. Nature's Services starts off with an introduction from Daily titled "What are Ecosystem Services" and another introductory piece by Harold Mooney and Paul Ehrlich that seeks to detail the "fragmentary history" of ecosystem services. After the introductions, the book is split into four distinct sections that address different elements of ecosystem services.
The first section of the book address the economic issues involved in assigning value to ecosystem services in the first place. The next two sections outline different kinds of services that can be provided by nature, "Overarching Services" and "Services Supplied by Major Biomes." The overarching services section includes papers like "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning" by David Tilman, "Ecosystem Services Supplied by Soil" by Daily, Pamela Matson and Peter Vitousek and "Services Provided by Pollinators" by Gary Nabhan and Stephen Buchmann The "Services Provided by Major Biomes" section includes papers regarding topics like "Marine Ecosystems" by Charles Peterson and Jane Lubchenco and "The World's Forests and their Ecosystem Services" by Norman Myers
The last section of the book includes case studies which showcase different services that distinct ecosystems provide to people around the world. Examples include: "Water Quality Improvements by Wetlands" by Katherine Ewel and "Ecosystem Services in a Modern Economy: Gunnison County, Colorado" by Andrew Wilcox and John Harte. In the conclusion of the book, Daily remarks that the "core analyses presented in this book attempt to value ecosystems and their component species only insofar as they confer benefits, in the form of life-support goods and services, to human beings" but that this "focus does not in any way preclude making decisions on the basis of other values as well."
In his review of the book, James Salzman concluded that Nature's Services, in contrast with efforts like the Endangered Species Act, "takes a different, potentially more effective tack, calling for explicit recognition of ecosystem services because of the direct, tangible benefits they provide. Such recognition could provide a more integrated and compelling basis for action than those suggested by a single-species or biodiversity protection for the simple reason that the impacts of those services on humans are more immediate and undeniably important."

''The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable''

The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable was co-written by Daily and Katherine Ellison and was published on September 1, 2003, by Island Press. The book presents different cases studies where companies or governments were able to actually profit from their conservation efforts. One chapter describes how New York "decided to meet federal requirements to improve
water quality with a less expensive, though more controversial, option of protecting watershed integrity through land purchases and development limits, rather than adopt the technological solution of a multibillion dollar treatment facility." While another chapter offers "an assessment of plans to manage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by developing a worldwide system of carbon
trading patterned on the U.S. experience with pollution"
Kenneth Arrow remarked that Daily and Ellison "have delineated the new movement to make conservation of natural resources financially rewarding and illustrate in a lively and probing manner many cases of profitable activities that also preserve the biosphere."
In his review of the book, Patrick Wilson stated that "The most notable contribution of The New Economy of Nature is its balanced message, optimistic and cautious." He goes on to say that the book "avoids the fallacy that the market is the solution to our environmental protection challenges and that, if allowed to operate free of government intervention, it can somehow make the policymaking choices less problematic and the tradeoffs less daunting" and that "it challenges elements of environmental orthodoxy that hold that the market, because of its short-term orientation and emphasis on profit over conservation, is an intrinsic threat to nature and the only solution is increased government oversight and financial commitment."

Awards and honors

Daily has received numerous prestigious awards and honors throughout her academic career, including the 21st Century Scientist Award, The Sophie Prize, The International Cosmos Prize, The 16th Annual Heinz Award with special focus on global change, the Midori Prize, the Volvo Environment Prize, the Blue Planet Prize, and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. She has received the 2018 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Ecology and Conservation Biology, jointly with Georgina Mace for developing vital tools facilitating science-based policies “to combat species loss.”

Selected works

Daily has authored, coauthored and/or edited five books. Daily has published more than 200 scientific and popular articles. She has published articles in many prestigious journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Nature and Science.
Some of her most cited/influential publications:
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