This week's Los Angeles Times Magazine includes an article about efforts to asses the financial value of services derived from ecosystems. For example, a recent study by the World Wildlife Fund reckoned that the bees pollinating a Costa Rican coffee farmer's crop, and by extension the nearby forest where the bees live, are worth as much as $60,000 annually to the farmer. The article includes discussion of "intrinsic" environmental values, which may conflict with the environomics approach.
How to Get Wall Street to Hug a Tree
Environmentalists and investment bankers are working together to put a price tag on nature. The new 'greens' think that human beings are ready to start paying for Mother Nature's services--and that calculating their financial worth will save the planet. By David Wolman
http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm-greenies06feb11,0,7457674.story?coll=la-home-magazine
John Davis
[email protected]
(909) 797 7717
Ecosystem Services
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Unfortunately, the way the decisions are made in our world revolve around 'economic benefit'. I (have a background in financial management, with a recent side-order of economics) have looked at the way 'economic benefit' is measured and agree with a number of thinkers on the subject, that it is inherently flawed. Marilyn Waring (ex NZ MP and author) is a wonderful source of information on the reasons why it is, and on the acknowledged, though not widely publicised belief that Gross Domestic Product & Gross National Product are not good measures of wealth. That said, I think that it is good to show individuals how they can save money by taking environmentally friendly steps. There is no doubt in my mind that this can encourage/contribute to people taking those steps. But I don't agree with assigning a monetary value the environmental elements. How much fresh air is worth, becomes (like the whole economic system) an exercise in asking how much it is worth to this person and that person and we come up with (for example) 3cents per square centimetre and what does that really mean? Which square cm? And is that my air that you are breathing, or my neighbours? Is water only worth something if it powers hydroelectricity or waters crops, and is it worth the same if it sits in a pristine water hole in the mountains that has never been touched by a human (rare I know!)? While I'm glad to be able to show people that it is to their financial advantage to respect the environment, I would hate to hand the value of the environment over to governments to assign their arbitrary values to in their 'economic' system. I would rather we value (literally, place a value) on the environment that does not equate to money, but equates to well-being, health, or some other factor. This isn't impossible, and it is measurable, it just isn't measured by our current system.
Amanda _
There is also the point that currently the costs of many ecoservices are borne by the few. Promoting the value of those services provides a way for the labour of these few to be better appreciated in both environmental and economic terms. We have been working with very low income families living in remote water catchment areas, creating links between them and downstream water users who have identified decrease in water quantity and quality. By increasing the appreciation of the sheer time and resources involved in catchment rehab, yet also the economic benefits to people on the plains if people upstream do the work, it is having the potential to draw resources into this previously unsupported remote area.
Many Thanks
Dorothy Lucks
Executive Director
Sustainable Development Facilitation
92 Aclare Road Barragup WA 6209
Tel: (08) 9582 9228
Fax: (08) 9582 9226 0413 766 299
Karen,
There's a list of sites at http://www.ima.kth.se/im/envsite/ecoeco.htm. A good resource is the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont (formerly, I believe, housed at the University of Maryland). Robert Costanza has been doing this kind of analysis as a biologist since the 1970s, and Herman Daly is one of the original ecological economists from the 1970s also (along with Kenneth Boulding). A good recent article: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/benefits_conference/nature_paper.pdf Bill Carter Water Quality Monitoring & Assessment MC 165 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality P.O. Box 13087 Austin, TX 78711-3087 Phone: 512-239-6771 Fax: 512-239-4410 [email protected] [email protected] 2/27/2007 3:33:24 PM > Hello, Interesting conversation...Is anyone doing work related to ecosystem goods and services (EGS)? I would be interested in hearing about EGS related projects. I am involved in a project that is attempting to inventory EGS currently being provided within a specific region. Specifically we are looking at: what ecosystem goods and services currently exist within the region, what the ecosystem services do (in relationship to the goods that are being produced and the maintenance of the assets), and the relative impact that anthropogenic activity/land use has on the production of EGS. We are hoping that the information will help people determine what portion and/or spatial pattern of landscapes should remain relatively undisturbed in the region in order to sustain the delivery of ecosystem goods and services.
Karen Hughes-
Field Project Analyst
Environmental Management
Southern Region, Alberta Environment
2938-11 Street NE Calgary AB T2E 7L7
Ph: (403) 355-4458
Fx: (403) 297-6069
[email protected]
As far as I know, what you are describing is not unheard of from a historical point of view: When being asked by the white settlers about what price they want for their land Indians were allegedly surprised about the whole idea of putting a price on land. So, I would agree: lots of work to be done to make sure what you describe won't happen! (- even if the above were only a nice story)
Best,
Angelika
Could not agree more Amanda. We can also look at the Bhutan situation and their Gross National Happiness index. Now, there is a good idea and I reckon it would be something that Marilyn Waring would appreciate too. It is gaining some interest around the world ideally as a balance to the other money based valuing that is going on or better still the future alternative. Check: http://www.bhutan.gov.bt/government/gnh.php
Kind regards,
Paul
This interesting discussion has basically arisen because of a (by no means unique) mal-evolution of the English language, specifically the multiple uses of "value". Instead of "value" being used by different categories of people to imply somewhat different things, the word should be replaced by a more precise synonym; playing around with those then brings the fatuousness of our parlance to light. How, for instance, could you question the price-tag of your life, the worth of bird-song, the monetary value of satisfaction? Further, as Marilyn Waring does indeed point out early on, making war has more "economic value" than does growing food for one's family, because the act of manufacturing weapons causes money to change hands and is therefore a useful marketable occupation in terms of national output. Have we let the economists dictate our priorities too acutely for too long? How can we break from the ugly fact that it costs less money to purchase goods that are bulk-produced, bulk-wrapped and bulk-shipped because of cheap labour overseas, and return to common-sensible local industries, local-community support and the greater satisfaction of returning to some sort of harmony with Nature and with mankind? One does sometimes try to put a price-tag on happiness, e.g. by accepting that it costs so much to spend a holiday on Isle X, but that sum of money is only what the tourist industry has obliged one to pay, relative to going somewhere else; it is not an actual happiness index.
Elizabeth Griffin
Victoria, BC, Canada
This work has been out there for a while. A great resource to read on this topic is Nature's Services; Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems edited by Gretchen Daily. It was put out by Island Press in 1997. It is a series of essays on how different parts of the environment have had their services valued in dollars. One area where this can have some impact is on the calculations factored into conservation easements - the value of water recharge for instance. I agree that "talking the language of economics" can open some doors that will remain closed otherwise. It's just one more tool in the conservation educator's tool box - heck we need all the tools we can get!!
Peter Colverson
Communications Specialist
Pandion Systems Inc.
4603 NW 6th Street
Gainesville, FL 32609
(352) 372-4747
Fax: (352) 372-4714
Cell: (352) 359-1283
www.pandionsystems.com
One ought bear in mind that in practice, economic analysis is little more conceptually than Benthams Hedonistic Calculus - the weighing up of goods and bads through first to n order effects, and using the result to say what one ought do. What economics does is try to provide a common currency or numerator by attaching value measured in dollar terms. The word value reflects exactly the nature of one of the hidden transations value is an application of unstated preferences and beliefs. Converting it to a number (with however many decimal points make you feel confident in its accuracy) is inherintly subjective. It also masks many often competing values. The real problem with all of this is that those playing the policy games elevate the tool (economic analysis) beyond its unavoidable limits. It is a great way of focusing a discussion and ensuring reasonable comprehensiveness. It is excellent at providing tools to unpack what is involved in what would otherwise be hidden in the debate. It however, not reliable in providing normative answers to the ethical and practical question what ought we do?, because no analytic tool can do so. Ultimately values are exactly that.
Cheers
This work has been out there for a while. A great resource to read on this topic is Nature's Services; Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems edited by Gretchen Daily. It was put out by Island Press in 1997. It is a series of essays on how different parts of the environment have had their services valued in dollars. One area where this can have some impact is on the calculations factored into conservation easements - the value of water recharge for instance. I agree that "talking the language of economics" can open some doors that will remain closed otherwise. It's just one more tool in the conservation educator's tool box - heck we need all the tools we can get!!
Peter Colverson
1) Re: Prompts by Jan Aceti
2) Re: ecosystem services by "Mel Tremper"
3) Educational video input sought by Doug Freeman
4) Please read: Feedback on Listserv Sought by "Steve Raney"
5) Publicity vs. Promoting Sustainable Behavior by [email protected]
6) Env. messages in television by [email protected]
7) Re: marketing environmentally preferable products by "Muise,Maurice [NCR]"
I think when you can quantify economically the benefits that an ecosystem (or species) can provide to people, it's like getting cards in the big money game that runs our economies. Then you have a 'currency' that can be valued and bet on. Otherwise, environmental arguments based on moral grounds are, to the wealthy players at the table, just so much frantic flapping about in the background, as the bets are placed and the hands get played out. This is the real world. Not for nothing did the UN pay some 1300 top scientists worldwide to do the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - the biggest global economic assessment of nature's services - which helps mainly government environmental ministers to have some good cards in their games with their other departmental colleagues eg mining, energy, economic development. Also, the Stern Report enabled the cost of addressing climate change be put into global GDP terms - 1%. It was ground-breaking work because it put the climate change argument into a discourse that bankers and fund managers, as well as economics ministers could understand and deal with.
Regards
Hugh Tyrrell
Tyrrell Associates
Environmental Communication
Tel: (021) 44 - 88123
Cell: 083 - 253 4100.
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