2010 International Year of Biodiversity

– can we put a price on creation?

by David Chandler and Andy Lester

Money talks, or so they say, and it’s a language that many people speak well. Some speak it fluently with, sadly, only a limited understanding of any other language. The value of land is often measured in pounds or dollars. Your house and the land it stands on might be worth £250,000. There is farmland in Cambridgeshire on the market for about £5,600 an acre. But is it possible to put a financial value on tropical rainforests, mangroves or coral reefs? If it is, is that good news for their long-term future?

A tree frog

Three years ago, at a meeting of the environment ministers of the G8 and G5 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US; and Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa respectively), the German government proposed a study on ‘the economic significance of the global loss of biodiversity’. This led to ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ (TEEB), an initiative led by the United Nations Environment Programme. TEEB aims to put a financial cost on biodiversity loss, and the loss of the ‘services’ provided by ecosystems, and to weigh these against the costs of looking after these areas and using them sustainably. The results will be presented this October in Japan, at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

TEEB has identified four laudable objectives:

• to stop loss of, and damage to, forests
• to conserve coral reefs
• to restore global fisheries, and
• to highlight the connection between poverty and abused ecosystems.

It has been estimated that in 2050 humanity would face an annual bill of about $14 trillion (7 per cent of global GDP) if we fail to stop the loss of species diversity. This is quite an incentive for positive action, and TEEB has published some encouraging valuations. some Pacific coral reefs have been valued at over $1.2 million per hectare per annum: $1 million of this represents their value for tourism, and $189,000 their role in ‘natural hazard management’ (in preventing flooding for example). Pragmatically, this sounds like a useful tool in helping secure a future for coral reefs.

A case study from Thailand looked at mangroves. Turn these into shrimp farms and they are worth $1,200 per hectare per annum. Leave them as mangroves and their value is ten times higher at $12,392 per hectare per annum, most of which reflects their value in offshore coastal protection. Brazilian rainforests are thought to be three times more valuable as rainforests than as beef farms. Once the case is established for maintaining an area for its ecosystem services, TEEB aims to protect it through a range of mechanisms, including carrot and stick financial incentives.

Is this the panacea that frustrated conservationists have been waiting for? A TEEB report states that ‘the systematic under-valuation of ecosystem services is one of the main causes of the biodiversity crisis…’. This approach can help to remedy that, providing the wherewithal for a positive discussion with decision-makers fluent in $-speak. To quote Pavan Sukhdev (TEEB study leader) speaking on BBC Radio 4 earlier this year: ‘economists do not always consider the environment as a serious player when assessing the viability of a project. By applying fiscal value, that can be addressed...’. So ecosystem services could make the environment more mainstream. A coffee plantation But there are difficulties, including the vagaries of a market economy. A paper by Douglas McCauley (Nature, 2006), makes this point well. Because of their pollination services in a Costa Rican coffee plantation, two bee species were valued at $60,000 per year. But coffee prices crumbled, the plantation switched to growing pineapples, which don’t need to be pollinated, and the bees’ value dropped to zero. Fiscal valuations of ecosystems are likely to be based on current perceptions of need, but who knows what our future needs might be, or what beneficial natural resources await discovery?

David Chandler is a freelance writer and environmental educator and a regular contributor to A Rocha’s magazine. Andy Lester is A Rocha UK’s Conservation Director. The authors would like to thank Dave Bookless for his help in preparing this article. Can biblical insights help policy-makers think at a deeper level?

Tropical forests, such as Kakum in Ghana, provide valued ecosystem services as carbon sinks and sometimes as tourist attractions.

There are costing difficulties too. How do you assess the worth of wind-borne dust from the Sahara, which has a fertilising effect on parts of Europe? Not everything can be predicted with the accuracy that economists like – we don’t know what precise impact climate change will have, but it will change things. And what about the therapeutic qualities of natural places to the sick and bereaved? some of the qualities of the natural world are beyond pricing – how can you put a monetary value on beauty, wonder and inspiration?

By definition, ‘ecosystem services’ is people-centred. A coral reef within easy reach of cash-toting tourists is highly valued. One that cannot be reached easily isn’t. Looking only at an ecosystem’s ‘service value’ ignores the intrinsic value of the species and place that make up that ecosystem. At its most extreme, one with little or no perceived financial value would have little or no life expectancy. To quote Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s species survival Commission, ‘We cannot put financial values on species when their true value is intrinsic’. By ascribing a financial value to ecosystems, we reduce them to commodities – to something valued only because of what it can give or do for us.

Spotted Flycatcher (muscicapa striata). Photo © Brian Stone. thenaturalstone.blogspot.com

Can biblical insights help policy-makers think at a deeper level? Does applying an economic value to something imply it has no intrinsic worth, or can this approach go hand-in-hand with an ethical approach to value? Can we put a value on species and ecosystems per se or only when we define their usefulness to humanity? We would value your thoughts. One thing is certain: an ecosystem services approach is here to stay and we need to play a part in its very necessary refinement.

A Rocha UK wants to explore the ethical and theological issues raised by the fiscal valuation of ecosystems. Christians believe creation reflects God’s creative genius. in Genesis, he gives us his valuation of allthat he has made. He declares it ‘very good’. By including ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ animals in the ark simply ‘so their kinds might continue upon the earth’, God makes it clear that even species with no direct benefit to mankind are of significant worth (Genesis 8–9). Jesus said that God did not forget the sparrows (Luke 12:6) – even if their fiscal value as an ‘ecosystem service’ was rather low!