Page 171 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

One 2004 study in Costa Rica showed how the value of par- such as clean air and water, because they are priceless and we
ticular services could be precisely measured. Taylor Ricketts of would perish without them. Others said that arguing for con-
Stanford University, working with Gretchen Daily and others, servation purely on economic grounds risked not being able to
studied native bees at a large coffee plantation. By carefully justify it whenever it failed to deliver clear economic benefits.
measuring bee pollination (p. 98, 272) and resulting coffee In 2002, Costanza joined Andrew Balmford and 17 other
production in areas near forest and in areas far from forest, colleagues to compare the benefits and costs of preserving natu-
Ricketts calculated that forests were providing the farm with ral systems intact versus converting wild lands for agriculture,
pollination services worth $60,000 per year. The study was logging, or fish farming. After reviewing many studies, they
persuasive and gained international attention, yet short-term reported in the journal Science that a global network of nature
economic incentives led the plantation owners to disregard its reserves covering 15% of Earth’s land surface and 30% of the
lessons. When the price of coffee dipped, the owners converted ocean would be worth $4.4 to $5.2 trillion. This amount is 100
the land to pineapple, which does not need pollinators. times greater than the amount those areas would be worth if they
In 1997 a research team headed by environmental econo- were converted for direct exploitative human use. This demon-
mist Robert Costanza set out to calculate the total economic strates, in their words, that “conservation in reserves represents a
value of all the services that oceans, forests, wetlands, and other strikingly good bargain.”
systems provide across the world. Costanza’s team combed the In 2010, researchers wrapped up a large U.N.-sponsored
scientific literature and evaluated over 100 studies that used var- international effort to summarize and assess attempts to quan-
ious valuation methods to estimate dollar values for 17 major tify the economic value of natural systems. The Economics of
ecosystem services, such as water purification, climate regula- Ecosystems and Biodiversity study has published a number of
tion, plant pollination, and pollution cleanup (FIguRE 6.15). To fascinating reports that you can download online. Regarding
improve the accuracy of estimates, the researchers reevaluated measuring, or valuation, of nature’s economic worth, this
the data using multiple valuation techniques. They then multi- effort concludes:
plied average estimates for each ecosystem by the global area it
occupied. Their analysis, reported in the journal Nature, calcu- Valuation is seen not as a panacea, but rather as a tool to
lated that Earth’s biosphere in total provides at least $33 trillion help recalibrate the faulty economic compass that has led
($48 trillion in 2013 due to inflation) worth of ecosystem ser- us to decisions that are prejudicial to both current well-
vices each year—more than the GDP of all nations combined! being and that of future generations. The invisibility of
This research sparked excitement, but also debate. Some biodiversity values has often encouraged inefficient use or
ethicists argued that we should not put dollar figures on services even destruction of the natural capital that is the foundation
of our economies.

Soil formation Ecosystem Services We can measure progress
Genetic resources with full cost accounting
Pollination If assigning market values to ecosystem
Habitat provision services helps to give us a fuller and truer
Biological control picture of costs and benefits, then we can
take a similar approach to measuring the
Erosion control
Type of ecosystem service Water regulation For decades, policymakers and the pub-
economic progress we make as a society.
Climate regulation
Raw materials
lic have assessed each nation’s economy
Recreation
by calculating its Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), the total monetary value of final
Gas regulation
Food provision
each year. Governments regularly use GDP
Water supply goods and services the nation produces
to make policy decisions that affect billions
Disturbance regulation of people. However, GDP is a poor meas-
Waste treatment ure of economic well-being. For one thing,
Cultural uses it does not account for nonmarket values.
Nutrient cycling For another, it lumps together all economic
activity, both desirable and undesirable.
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 17.0 Thus, GDP can rise in response to eco-
Total global value per year (trillions of dollars) nomic activities that harm society.
For example, crime boosts GDP
FIguRE 6.15 Environmental economists in 1997 estimated the value of the
world’s ecosystem services at more than $33 trillion ($48 trillion in 2013 dollars). because crime forces people to invest in
Shown are subtotals for each ecosystem service. This amount is an underestimate security measures and to replace stolen
because it does not include ecosystems for which adequate data were unavailable. Data items. Oil spills (FIguRE 6.16) increase
from Costanza, R., et al., 1997. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387: GDP because they require cleanups, which
170 253–260. cost money and increase the production

M06_WITH7428_05_SE_C06.indd 170 12/12/14 2:57 PM