Talking about nature in economic terms does not lessen its intrinsic beauty but it just might save it from the forces of misdirected markets
Dr Gerard Bertrand
Dr Gerard Bertrand has been the Environmental Advisor for Permian Global since the company was founded in 2007. He has a MS and PhD in marine science and oceanography and a degree in environmental law. During his long career he has been a science advisor at The Council on Environmental Quality for three US presidents – President Nixon, Ford, and Carter, he has been Head of International Affairs for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Chairman of Birdlife International, President of Massachusetts Audubon Society, and Co-Founder and Honorary President of the World Land Trust.
The exact extent to which the Earth’s land surface has been altered by human activity is debated by scientists. The IPCC report set it at 69-75%, others put it as high as 95%. Whatever the specific figure, most agree that human impact on the natural environment has been substantial and is accelerating.
This influence exerted over the environment, which has happened in an astonishingly brief period in Earth’s history, extends to everything from water contamination to land conversion, plastic particulates to air pollution, and ocean acidification to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Approximately 40% of the world’s plants are considered to be endangered. Insect populations are collapsing due to deforestation, pesticide use, urbanisation, and climate change, which puts an estimated $600 billion worth of global crops lost due to missing pollinators. The human-caused annihilation of biodiversity is now so great that it is widely recognised as the 6th mass extinction event – an event that has only happened five other times in the 4.3 billion years since conditions on Earth became suitable for life.
Our disregard for nature is at odds with the unmeasurable value we derive from it. Biodiverse forest ecosystems, to take one environmental example, shape climate and weather systems that water our crops, purify the air and filter water, prevent erosion, and offer the ingredients for pharmaceutical development whilst limiting the spread of diseases. All this while providing home for 300 million people, including 60 million indigenous people .
The word ‘disregard’ is important here. Much of the devastation wrought upon the natural world is not necessarily destruction for its own sake, but the byproduct of a global economic system that derives value from things that can be priced. Countless services provided by nature – from freshwater to raw materials to diluting pollution – are not priced and so they are all too often written off balance sheets as externalities.
How we talk about nature matters. I sympathise and relate with those environmental campaigners who feel there is something instinctively wrong in quantifying nature in purely economic terms, not least because with any analysis, the true valuation will likely be underestimated. But when global financial incentives are driving environmental destruction based only on the value of what can be extracted, the imperative should be to quantify the cost of the destruction in order to make the economic case for conservation a more compelling argument.
There are three broad ways I have come to look at this:
- Protecting nature’s capital, biodiversity, is not optional. It’s fundamental to protecting and improving our economy.
- Governments need to regulate and encourage strong markets to protect biodiversity. However, they have failed to address biodiversity and the climate crisis efficiently. We need private capital and investment to make a difference.
- Protecting biodiversity is extremely popular. People love nature and wildlife, and private capital and corporations can demonstrate good corporate responsibility by investing in biodiversity.
The Earth’s surface is 70% ocean, with an average depth of 4 kilometres, reaching 11 kilometers in its deepest trenches. Life is abundant, diverse and diffuse. On the other hand, on the 30% of the Earth’s surface that is land life is highly concentrated. Tropical forests, which make up 3.6% of the Earth’s surface, contain 90% of all land species. Insects, which are land animals, make up a third of all biodiversity on Earth. Estimates of the total number of species vary widely, from 5 to 13 million, but only about two million have been described. This indicates how much we still have to learn about our planet.
But today, one in five species currently faces extinction. The Earth’s land area has been dramatically altered, with 50% converted to agricultural livestock grazing, 70% of all birds are domestic poultry, 85% of wetlands have been lost, and significant decreases have happened in insect and vertebrate populations. all this has occurred mainly in the last 30 years, with an acceleration of losses and extinction.
Nor is biodiversity loss an isolated issue. Like many of the planetary boundaries we are pushing or have crossed over the last few decades, the biodiversity crisis is closely link to other crises. Biodiversity loss is a result of many combined anthropogenic factors, from environmental degradation and habitat loss, to depletion of fresh water, the release of industrial chemical pollutants and increase temperatures due to the burning of fossil fuels.
But just as the causes of these crises are combined, so too are the solutions. By protecting and restoring nature, we help improve the genetic and functional integrity of the biosphere while also improving the carbon storage capacity of the environment – the more diverse an area, the more carbon it sequesters.
Forests and other natural environments should be protected for their own intrinsic value, but we should never lose sight of the how critical healthy ecosystems are to our own survival and the economic systems we have come to reply on. The world food supply, through agriculture is just one crucial reason to protect biodiversity. Half of the world’s food supply comes from three self-pollinating species: wheat, corn, and maize. Most species are pollinated by wild pollinators now at risk due to their decline. There are pharmacological reasons to protect biodiversity as well. Seventy percent of cancer drugs have been derived from wild species, but less than 15% of species have been screened for medicinal properties. Wild species hold answers to critical problems, such as why bats carry diseases like Marburg and Ebola but don’t get sick.
Protecting biodiversity reduces economic risks. The history of this effort goes back 175 years with the establishment of national parks. However, public lands can be changed by the stroke of a pen, and in developing countries, illegal activities threaten these areas. The private sector has a strong role to play in protecting biodiversity.
Carbon credits have provided a new way to solve the climate crisis by removing CO2 through carbon sequestration. Biodiversity credits could do the same for biodiversity, providing income while protecting forests. At least thirty efforts are currently underway to develop measurable, verifiable, auditable, and tradable biodiversity credits.
At Permian Global, we demonstrate good carbon sequestration through forest protection and have a major programme to protect biodiversity under our care. Protecting biodiversity is not optional. Our economic system is tied to a biodiverse world. Governments need to regulate markets, but private investment is crucial to make it achievable. Lastly protecting biodiversity is popular and has strong public support public. Investing in its protection demonstrates sound corporate responsibility to all.
