Capitalizing on Nature: Ecosystems as Natural Assets
Edward B. Barbier
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0521189276
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The basic unit of nature - the ecosystem - is a special form of wealth, which we can think of as a stock of natural capital. However, perhaps because this capital is free, we have tended to view it as limitless, abundant and always available for our use, exploitation and conversion. Capitalizing on Nature shows how modeling ecosystems as natural capital can help us to analyze the economic behavior that has led to the overuse of so much ecological wealth. It explains how this concept of ecosystem as natural capital sheds light on a number of important issues, including landscape conversion, ecological restoration, ecosystem resilience and collapse, spatial benefits and payments for ecosystem services. The book concludes by focusing on major policy challenges that need to be overcome in order to avert the worsening problem of ecological scarcity and how we can fund novel financing mechanisms for global conservation.
ecosystems as a special type of capital asset€– a form of “ecological wealth”€– then just like any other 30 Ecosystem services and ecological landscapes asset or investment in the economy, ecosystems must be capable of generating current and future flows of income or benefits. It follows that, in principle, ecosystems can be valued just like any other asset in an economy. Regardless of whether or not there exists a market for the goods and services produced by ecosystems, their social value
be much less reliable. Final remarks This chapter has sought to show how the concept of an ecological landscape facilitates our characterization of ecosystems as natural assets. That is, if ecosystems and the goods and services they generate can be associated with the ecological landscape defining these systems, then we have a way of depicting these ecosystems as natural assets that is amenable to economic analysis. Viewing ecosystems as natural assets is also an important way of communicating
restoration options. Milon and Scrogin (2006) analyze three distinct groups, who vary significantly in socio-economic characteristics and in their preferences for ecosystem restoration of the Greater Everglades in Florida, to assess their willingness to pay (WTP) for different restoration options. The Greater Everglades wetlands ecosystem extends over 69,000 sq. km, but by 1990, it had declined to less than 50 percent of its original area due to extensive land use conversion and hydrological
Conservation Biology 24:207–216. Johnston, R.J., T.A. Grigalunas, J.J. Opaluch, M. Mazzotta, and J.€Diamantedes. 2002. “Valuing estuarine resource services using economic and ecological models: the Peconic Estuary system.” Coastal Management 30(1):47–65. Koch, E.W., E.B. Barbier, B.R. Silliman et al. 2009. “Non-linearity in ecosystem services: temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7:29–37. References 149 Kolstad, C. 1994. “Hotelling
162 The open economy economies indicates that seventy-two out of ninety-five low- and Â�middle-income economies have 50 percent or more of their exports from primary products, and thirty-five countries have an export concentration in primary commodities of 90 percent or more. 2 In sum, developing regions may be the last reservoirs of much of the world’s relatively undisturbed ecosystems and biodiversity but poor economies also face intense pressures to develop rather than conserve such areas.