This is the second installment of this annual review series presents invited papers published in collaboration with the United States Society for Ecological Economics. This issue will include in-depth reviews of topics such as: ecological economics of land degradation; assessing the true costs of coal; institutional change and ecological economics; energy and economic growth; systems theory of sustainable exploitation of ecosystems; payments for environmental services; climate change and game theory; the economic value of ecosystem services in the Great Barrier Reef; and core issues in the economics of biodiversity conservation.

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Robert Costanza is Professor and Chair in Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. His transdisciplinary research integrates the study of humans and the rest of nature to address research, policy and management issues at multiple time and space scales, from small watersheds to global systems. He is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and was chief editor of the society's journal, Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989 until 2002. He is founding editor-in-chief of Solutions a new hybrid academic/popular journal.