Surveys Where is the value in valuing pollination ecosystem services to agriculture? Andony P. Melathopoulos a, ⁎, G. Christopher Cutler b , Peter Tyedmers a,c a School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Bldg, 6100 University Avenue, Suite 5010, P. O. Box 15000, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada b Department of Environmental Sciences, Dalhousie University, Agriculture Campus, PO Box 550, Truro, NS B2N 5E3, Canada c College of Sustainability, Dalhousie University, 1459 LeMarchant St., PO BOX 15000, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada abstract article info Article history: Received 13 April 2014 Received in revised form 7 September 2014 Accepted 2 November 2014 Available online xxxx Keywords: Ecosystem servicesValuationWild pollinator Current national and global scale monetary valuation of pollination services do not accurately estimate the contribution of wild pollinators to agricultural production. First, ecosystem (wild) pollination services remain largely bundled with those of managed pollinators. This problem is compounded by the fact that the dependency of crops on pollination, a key parameter used in current valuations, does not reflect variation in pollinator density, crop cultivars and growing conditions that exist in practice. Over half of the €153 billion of estimated global pollination service value in 2005 is based on estimates of pollinator dependency from crops with fewer than three field studies that measure actual levels of pollinator activity and corresponding fruit set. The resulting uncertainty may be most distorting when applied to widely-planted intensive oilseed crops. Furthermore, cur- rent valuations are underpinned by simplistic assumptions regarding the likelihood of pollinator decline and the impact on agricultural prices. Although efforts to motivate wild pollinator protection through their ecosystem service value remain highly circumscribed by conceptual and empirical limitations, we identify the need to go beyond technical solutions and develop a critical framework that could account for why pollinator conservation has come to be predominantly justified in these terms to begin with. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Evidence has emerged of a global decline in a number of wild animal species that pollinate angiosperm plants (reviewed in Potts et al., 2010) even though conservation initiatives appear to offer the potential for reversing this trend (Carvalheiro et al., 2013). A prominent approach to encourage the conservation of these species has been to calculate the economic value (hereafter simply termed “value” unless otherwise characterized) they contribute to the production of pollinator- dependent agricultural crops. It is estimated that in 2005 €153 billion (Gallai et al., 2009) of global food production would be lost if pollinating insects disappeared. Furthermore, it is asserted that the value of insect pollinators to global crop production is rapidly rising (Lautenbach et al., 2012). Efforts to estimate the value of ecosystem services provided by wild species to human well-being originate in the 1980s and have grown into a widely asserted justification for international conservation initiatives (Gomez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Perez, 2011). Underpinning the ecosys- tem service approach is the assumption that the diversity and density of wild pollinator populations surrounding agricultural land are key to current levels of pollinator-dependent seed and fruit crop yield (Garibaldi et al., 2013; Greenleaf and Kremen, 2006; Hoehn et al., 2008; Winfree et al., 2011). By quantifying the value attributable to current crop yields it is hoped that pollinator conservation will be encouraged, thus overcoming the traditional opposition between economic imperatives and conservation (Armsworth et al., 2007). In other words, it is anticipated that if the value of wild pollinator services is demonstrated, farmers, land managers and the public at large will be motivated to protect pollinator habitat and pressure policy-makers to implement agri-environmental programs that meaningfully target pollinators, and by extension, more generalized conservation (reviewed in Winfree, 2010). In this paper we will argue that our capacity to judge the risk of lost agricultural value due to wild pollinator loss is severely impaired by our current inability to gauge the magnitude and importance of the services being provided by wild species to current production. We will demon- strate substantial problems with both the methods and data used to quantify the value of pollinators, specifically: • The actual dependency of yield on the activity of insect pollinators, D, is frequently unknown (Assumption 1, Fig. 1). • The proportion of this pollination conducted by managed pollinators, ρ, and by extension that conducted by wild pollinators, is assumed but rarely assessed (Assumption 2). Ecological Economics 109 (2015) 59–70 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: Andony.Melathopoulos@dal.ca (A.P. Melathopoulos). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.11.007 0921-8009/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon