The value of nature
We have probably all learnt to be more appreciative of nature as a result of the confinements of lockdown.
But the question is: do we value it enough to pay for it?
As well as recreation and a feeling of well-being, the natural environment provides many other essentials – now called ecosystem services – such as climate regulation, food, waste disposal and water, oxygen and CO2 recycling – the list is endless and includes protection from pandemics like Covid-19, caused by loss of wildlife habitats allowing our closer contact with disease-carrying animals.
Nature’s natural cycles have evolved over millions of years and were balanced and sustainable until now, in the anthropogenic era, we are wilfully destroying nature’s regenerative powers.
This demolition of the world’s life support systems will soon become irreversible so something must be done quickly.
But how is it possible to put a value on natural processes?
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England for seven years from 2013, recently pinpointed the problem by citing the following example: ‘We can price Amazon, the company; its current market value is almost $1.7 trillion – but value is only ascribed to the Amazon, the region, when the ecosystem is destroyed for purposes of agriculture or harvesting timber.’ *
In March this year, however, the United Nations agreed a system of environmental economic accounting for ecosystems by setting out principles that will enable public authorities to put a value on their environment.
And almost simultaneously an interim report of the Dasgupta Review on Economics and Diversity was published in the UK.
This independent review, led by economist Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, was commissioned by HM Treasury ‘to assess the economic costs of biodiversity loss and identify actions which can protect and enhance both biodiversity and economic prosperity’.
In the interim report the panels accept that the human economy is embedded within – not external to – nature and states that it intends to ‘revisit our measures of success, including looking beyond GDP to maximise our wealth and well-being and that of future generations’.
A real revision of capitalist principles.
* New Scientist, March 20 2012.