All of these vital functions of nature have economic values that long have been ignored — but that must change if we are to stop the destruction and degradation of ecosystems around the world, the UN Environment Program said in report Wednesday.

Governments and businesses need to incorporate the value of such natural capital into their decision-making, and not just pay attention to traditional economic measures such as manufacturing, mining and energy production, the report urged.

The two-year study, released at a conference of the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, attempts to show the economic implications of failing to stop the alarming loss of species and damage to ecosystems due to pollution, overexploitation or habitat destruction.

The poor, who depend heavily on nature for food and shelter, are particularly vulnerable, so sustainable management of natural capital can help fight poverty, the report said.

“The time for ignoring biodiversity and persisting with conventional thinking regarding wealth creation and development is over,” Pavan Sukhdev, the study leader, said in a statement.

As an example, overexploitation of global fisheries leads to an annual loss of $50 billion every year compared to a more sustainable fishing scenario, the report said. Insect pollinators provided an economic value of 153 billion euros ($211 billion) in 2005, it found.

As the world's cities grow, showing the value of “ecosystem services” like water purification and flood control provided by the surrounding countryside can help city authorities maximize efficient use of natural capital, said the report, titled “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.” For example, New York City authorities paid landowners in the Catskill mountains north of the city about $1.5 billion to prevent run-off of waste and nutrients into nearby watercourses to avoid building a new water treatment plant for up to $8 billion. Water bills for New Yorkers went up by 9 percent, instead of doubling as they would have with a new filtration facility, the study said.

The report did not provide an overall estimate of annual global costs from biodiversity loss because not enough data is available from the many different kinds of ecosystems, said Joshua Bishop, chief economist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature who was involved in the study.

Bishop said the process of quantifying biodiversity losses is far more complicated than the British government's Stern Review of climate economics, which estimated the cost of reducing greenhouse gases.

The two-week UN conference aims to come up with 20 targets for 2020 to stop or slow this biodiversity loss.

Scientists say human activities are driving species extinct at a rate 100 to 1,000 times the historical average and threatening ecosystems.

Environmental groups hope the report will convince government ministers gathering next week to take steps to counter these trends.

“This is building the pressure on the ministers,” said Tove Ryding, policy adviser on biodiversity for Greenpeace. “We're hoping they see this as a strong call for action.”