Ecological Economist

Bob Costanza et al's landmark paper published in 1997 in "Nature" magazine is frequently used as a source: http://www.uvm.edu/giee/publications/Nature_Paper.pdf

Here is a World Bank report that is also quotable: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/12/08/
000012009_20041208104054/Rendered/PDF/308870PAPER0EDP0101010Valuation.pdf

Jeff Hohensee
Natural Capitalism Solutions

One point to note is that ecosystem service valuation, while consistent with the principles of ecological economics, is not the same as ecological economics. Ecosystem service valuation can be considered an economic theory, whereas ecological economics is an entire discipline.

This site might be helpful: http://www.ecosystemvaluation.org/

And this might be another good place to start for background on ecological economics: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2003/04/08/harris-economists/
The Wealth of Nature A three-part series profiling ecological economists
By Lissa Harris 08 Apr 2003

Jennifer Kane

A good place to start would be the Sustainability Institute http://www.sustainer.org/tools_resources/papers.html

Hi Tasha.

GPI Atlantic has done a lot of work on natural capital and full cost accounting. They are based in Halifax, Nova Scotia and their work is focused on Atlantic Canada. Although they do not have affiliates in other provinces, you may find their web site informative: www.gpiatlantic.org.

Regards,
Nancy Webber

Coordinator/Program Development
Clean Nova Scotia
902.420.7931
[email protected]
www.clean.ns.ca

Hi Tasha,

This is a big, complex, and very important topic. Various efforts to quantify ecological processes and set up ecosystem markets are relatively new. That said, here are a couple of websites and projects that may give you some places to start learning more:

1. Willamette Partnership http://www.willamettepartnership.org/about-markets

2. The Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace http://ecosystemmarketplace.com/

3. The Value of Ecosystem Services in Portland, Oregon http://www.ucowr.siu.edu/proceedings/2004%20Proceedings/2004%20UCOWR%20Conference%20Proceedings/
Tuesday/PM1%20Technical%20Sessions/Session%2011/Heagerty.pdf "In a project supported by the City of Portland, an interdisciplinary team developed a methodfor quantifying the economic values associated with riparian restoration projects. The team included ecologists, environmental planners and scientists, natural-resource policy advisors, and natural-resource economists from David Evans and Associates, ECONorthwest, and the City. The teams approach, termed Comparative Valuation of Ecosystem Services (CVES), combines a systems-dynamic model of changing ecosystem services with ecosystem-economics data and information on the value of ecosystem services."

4. The worth of boreal forests in Canada (2005) http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2005/11/25/mb_boreal-capital-20051125.html

Best.
P+T Peter+Trudy Johnson-Lenz
8340 SW 6th Ave. Portland, OR 97219
503.635.2615
[email protected]
www.johnson-lenz.com

The concept of "ecosystem services" makes me shudder in its arrogant anthropocentricity. Currently the ecosystem is serving us right, much to our current and future dismay. Perhaps thinking of "ecosystem loans," "ecosystem gifts," or "ecosystem grace" would foster more sustainable behavior.

Cheers,
Adam

In ecosystemically underserved Massachusetts, USA, where the legislature, in its infinite fantasy, just passed a Global Warming "Solutions" Act, shooting for the pointless 80% by 2050

Ecosystems also provide services to fulfill their own environmental needs, so a healthy forest provides clean water to the rivers and streams located within the forested area and to the complex array of plants and animals living within those waterways. Sure, ecosystems also provide services to human beings but that's only part of the story so I can't agree that the concept of ecosystem services is anthropocentric. Further, if the concept of ecosystem services helps to convince hard-nosed economists who control the purse strings in government and corporations that the environment is worth protecting, then we should work harder to inform the wider community what the concept actually means and hence how much the environment is worth.

Bernie

Dear Tascha,

to my knowledge, work on valuing ecosystem services has just begun to enter the mainstream of regulatory discourse. We have an emerging program on ecosystem services here at the EEA: http://reports.eea.europa.eu/briefing_2008_2 The Millenium Report was also a milestone publication in the field: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/

Finally, in academia, Robert Costanza was the pioneer in the field: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Costanza ; http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=about/Robert_Costanza.html&SM=about/about_menu.html

Yours, Martin KvK.

Martin Krayer von Krauss, PhD
Strategic Knowledge and Innovation
European Environment Agency
Kongens Nytorv 6 DK-1050
Copenhagen K

Dear Tanya:

Your request has stirred some good suggestions and interesting feedback. I am a fan of the work done by the late Donella Meadows, which has been mentioned. You might also want to look at the work being undertaken by the Biommicry Institute as it focuses on the positive - the benefits accrued by doing right things better. In theory our current systems are 96% inefficient, so there is a huge opportunity for improvement. In the work I have done in Asia, I uncovered statistics that inferred that 7 cents on every dollar went to clean up past mistakes. This is the cost of environmental debt that results from the cumulation of seemingly trivial individual everyday actions. Germany also did some eye opening research quite a few years ago on an Ecological Balance Sheet - costs associated with the culmination of chronic inefficiency, not crises or chaotic events. If you are interested in this data, just email me directly and I will forward it to you. If you are looking for something practical, the simpler the tool, the better. If you are trying to assess a specific project, a simple payback methodology may be useful. You can read about this in http://www.cfib.ca/en/smallbiz-solutions/business-resources.asp If you assessment needs to address those issues corporately that lie below the traditional waterline (externalities that have an impact on corporate reputations and their balance sheets) I strongly recommend the work of Bob Willard. http://www.sustainabilityadvantage.com/ I also have found that it is useful to do a positive and negative sort on the costs, as traditional accounting procedures did not cover the true or total cost of projects. The Tellus Institute has done some good work on Total Cost Assessment. This also ties in with the whole movement starting to occur in the accounting profession to look at tools to quantify sustainability. Their sites are set on climate change issues (as predominately linear thinkers, things occur in logical sequence to address issues of highest risk). On that same note, the Stern Report provides some very clear assessments of the true cost of climate change and a solid agreement for immediate changes in how we manage our use of Mother Nature's resources.

Good luck with this.
L L. E. Johannson, B.E.S. (Hons), M.Sc.,

FRSA President
E2 Management Corporation (E2M)
113 Mountainview Road
South Georgetown,
Ontario CANADA L7G 4K2
Tel: (1) 905 - 873 - 9484
Fax: (1) 905 - 873 - 3054
Email: [email protected]

Hello,

In addition to the many good references you have received, for various perspectives on the topic you also might check out articles by authors James Boyd and Spencer Banzhaf, Rudolph DeGroot, D.W Pearce, Gretchen Daily, and Frederick Cubbage. Also, an article on "Pollination and Other Ecosystem Services Produced by Mobile Organisms..." by Clair Kremmen et.al. published in Ecology Letters (2007) 10:299-314 is an exhaustive treatment and excellent illustration of how interrelated and interdependent ecosystem functions and services can be. For example, that while humans derive a benefit (service?) at some location (ag fields) on the landscape from the activities of natural pollinators, the pollinators themselves require an additional, different set of environmental conditions within the same landscape to fulfill the other parts of their life cycle (nesting, reproducing, overwintering, etc.). Of interest is that the conditions required by these organisms for nesting, overwintering, etc. is ALSO dependent on their pollinating activities. Key to examining the concept of VALUE, with regard to ecosystem functions that are externalized in commercial land-use transactions, is the fact that a substantial portion of the benefits derived from natural ecosystems likely accrue to those in closest proximity to the benefits being produced. (Well-water quality and watershed function, for example), so valuing such benefits begins with local attitudes and local approaches to policy. So that, along with being able to quantify the benefit or service in some way (we need to know not simply that certain birds eat defoliating caterpillars, but how many caterpillars per day, over what time frame, and how many of these birds per square mile the landscape will support) will help determine which valuation method one might choose.

Good Luck,
Thomas E. Worthley

Associate Extension Educator
Middlesex County Extension Center
1066 Saybrook Rd.
Haddam, CT 06438-0070
phone: 860-345-5232
fax: 860-345-3357

Tascha,

For your project I recommentd a book published by the Society for Ecological Restoration International entitled, "Restoring Natural Capital: Science, Business and Practice." Here is a blurb from SER's website (http://www.ser.org/content/restoring_natural_capital.asp): How can environmental degradation be stopped? How can it be reversed? And how can the damage already done be repaired? The authors of this volume argue that a two-pronged approach is needed: reducing demand for ecosystem goods and services and better management of them, coupled with anincrease in supply through environmental restoration. Restoring Natural Capital brings together economists and ecologists, theoreticians, practitioners, policy makers, and scientists from the developed and developing worlds to consider the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socioecological systems. It examines the business and practice of restoring natural capital, and seeks to establish common ground between economists and ecologists with respect to the restoration of degraded ecosystems and landscapes and the still broader task of restoring natural capital.

Best,
Lynn Ackerson

Hello

agree with the philosophy of measuring ecological services, but we have it the wrong way around I think. As Senator Gaylord Nelson (deceased) (and others) have said, "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment". In other words, the economy operates within the larger world of the environment, and is a sub-set of the environment measuring (until now) human activities and values within life on earth. To use one small example, E.O. Wilson (Harvard) has said: If we didn't have pollinators, the diversity of plants, including many crops on which human life depends, would disappear. All the animals that depend on the flowering plants for food and shelter would also disappear. There would be a general collapse of life on land. If the ecological 'services' supplied by the environment and it's biota disappeared, we'd all be dead. We might as well ask "what's your life worth?" or "What are 3.5 billion lives worth in terms of the human economy?" And we would therefore value ecological 'services' as 'priceless' from a human standpoint. But I guess for now we'll have to settle for measuring the 'value' (read economic value to the human economy) of various subsets of the environmental 'services' which accrue to us from being one of the denizens here on planet earth.

Norm Ruttan

iWasteNot Systems
Materials Exchanges
www.cmex.ca
Green Community Websites
www.iwastenot.com/davis
Food Exchanges 
www.foodtrader.org
1-800-630-7864

P.S. the discussion reminds me of the old saying that 'the definition of a fool is someone who knows the price of everthing, and the value of nothing".

Norm

Hi Tascha,

I just recently discovered a prof.(Willian E. Rees) at UBC's School of Community and Rural Planning. The URL below will take you to his bio. Among many other environmental disciplines - he is also an ecological economist. Do check his bio for other web sites he is involved with.

Hope this helps!!

http://www.scarp.ubc.ca/faculty%20profiles/rees.htm

John

John Kay
Canada

Tascha,

The International Society of Ecological Economics (ISEE) might have some useful resources and contacts. Their website is at:

http://www.ecoeco.org/



Joanne Southall
United Kingdom