We rely on the earth’s ecosystems to provide many goods and services to support our personal, economic and human societal health. These varied ecological services are impossible to replace and are crucial to the planet’s and humans’ overall well-being. Among the many goods and services that ecosystems provide include:

• providing food, fuel and fibre
• providing shelter and building materials
• purifying the air and water
• detoxifying and decomposing wastes
• stabilizing and moderating the Earth’s climate
• moderating floods, droughts, temperature extremes and the forces of wind
• generating and renewing soil fertility, including nutrient cycling
• pollinating plants, including many crops
• controlling pests and diseases
• maintaining genetic resources as key inputs to crop varieties and livestock breeds, medicines and other products
• cultural and aesthetic benefits; and the
• ability to adapt and change (4)

While ecosystems provide a vast array of goods and services, it is difficult to accurately monetarily value them because knowledge is limited by the complexity of environmental systems. For example, still to be discovered are the many linkages between organisms and slight disturbances may have dramatic, unforeseen consequences.

Yet many scientists suggest that proper valuation is part of what is needed to reduce the loss of biodiversity by assigning concrete values to ecological goods and services. This is thought to create an economic appreciation of these goods and services, an awareness of the ecological impact of our actions and to improve planning and management of Earth’s systems. It is, however, been slow to develop accurate, straightforward and widely accepted measures for assessing ecosystem values. What’s more, current international practices, which are valuing ecosystem services at zero are not considering the needs of future generations. Moreover, are the instances when individuals make decisions based on the immediate financial gains of logging a forest, for example, instead of considering the “invisible” benefits of the forest, such as carbon sequestration, flood protection and habitat for pollinators (5).

Despite the challenges of valuing ecosystems, experts are still working towards highlighting the benefits provided by ecosystems using monetary and/or physical indices. The two main methods used are 1) creating a common asset trust, which “propertizes” the public good without making ecosystems private and 2) paying for ecosystem services i.e. when farmers are paid or given incentives to leave part of their land fallow to improve soil health. (6)

References 

4. Convention on Biological Diversity. “How the Convention on Biological Diversity Promotes Nature and Human Well-being – We are Changing Life on Earth”. https://www.cbd.int/convention/guide/?id=changing

5. WorldWatch Institute. “Unparalleled Biodiversity Loss Continues without Political Action and Ecosystem Valuation”. 5-22-2012 http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EcoWatch%20052212.pdf

6. Ibid.