New global estimation of biodiversity benefits and ecosystem services finds flows valued at $1 trillion USD per year to poor communities.

Many of Nature's services are literally priceless – we cannot live without them and they have no known substitutes. But pricing these services can focus attention on the importance of healthy ecosystems for sustained development and poverty alleviation.

Now a study published recently in the journal BioScience shows that protecting the land of highest priority for biodiversity conservation also delivers significant, ecosystem services and income to the world's most impoverished people.

The scientists assessed a broad range of ecosystem services, from local benefits including crop pollination, foods, medicines, and clean, fresh water, to global benefits such as climate regulation.

The focus of the new study was whether the world's top conservation priorities (less than a quarter of Earth's land surface) directly support the world's poorest people, who generally struggle to survive on less than one dollar a day.

Vital safety net for the poor
"We have always known that biodiversity is foundational to human well-being, but we now have a strong case that ecosystems specifically located in the world's biodiversity hotspots and high-biodiversity wilderness areas also provide a vital safety net for people living in poverty", says Dr. Russell Mittermeier, President of Conservation International and a co-author of the new paper in a press release.

The study also found that when all 17 ecosystem services they examined are totalled, the benefits of these areas are more than triple the costs of conserving them.

"Developed and developing economies cannot continue to ask the world's poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally important ecosystem services for the rest of the world's benefit, without compensation in return," added Dr. Will Turner, lead author and Vice President for Conservation International. "This is exactly what we mean when talk about valuing natural capital. Nature may not send us a bill, but its essential services and flows, both direct and indirect, have concrete economic value."

The nature of value

But while the concept of ecosystem services has gained more and more supporters and visibility, it has also attracted a number of critics over the years. Notably, in 2006, Douglas McCauley published the critique, “Selling Out On Nature” in the journal Nature where he suggested that “we will make more progress in the long run by appealing to people's hearts rather than to their wallets. If we oversell the message that ecosystems are important because they provide services, we will have effectively sold out on nature”.

I definitely see his point but I do think we need to use both these approaches, depending on target group. We here at SDUpdate have previously argued that speaking to decision makers the best way to make a change is to combine awe, fascination and wonder for the natural world with "need" messages - providing economic reasons against biodiversity loss - and "action" messages that make specific requests of the policy makers.

One of the most well known proponents of the ecosystem services concept, Gretchen Daily from Stanford University, has this to say about the environmentalists who criticize valuation and why she does not fully agree with them:

“To them, it’s a slippery slope that risks giving in to the ‘dark side’ of economics with no ethics. A wetland with high flood control value might be protected, whereas one with only aesthetic and recreational appeal may not measure up against a shopping mall. I share these worries, but we need to work pragmatically and confront the current situation. Let’s face it, most major decisions are made on a cost-benefit basis, and natural capital is assigned zero value.”