Following the goverment’s National Ecosystem Assessment, conducted last year, in which a large number of scientists from institutes across the country looked at the beneficial processes which occur naturally in the environment and, in order to incentivise their preservation, attempted to attribute financial values to them, a group of experts has met to debate whether we can really put a price on nature.  

‘Ecosystem services’, as the natural processes have been termed, are things such as Clean air, fresh water, pollinating crops, flood protection, carbon sequestration and even food, which relies more on favourable atmospheric conditions than human inputs to grow. They are ecosystem function which benefit humans, and especially those in land-based industries, but which, as they occur naturally, carry no cost.

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Following the outcomes of the controversial NEA, which, after examining the various ecosystem services provided by and industrial uses of the UK countryside, made some controversial recommendations including paying farmers for carbon storage and protecting biodiversity, which is falling at an alarming rate. Amongst the most controversial suggestions came from a professor at the University of East Anglia, who suggested farmers of low-value high input products, such as lamb in North Wales could instead be paid to plant forests to provide carbon storage, wildlife habitats and recreation for cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Wrexham.

Is it right to ascribe financial values to systems on which we rely for survival?

The panel in Wednesday’s debate discussed whether calculating the monetary value of natural services will promote a more responsible use of the world's natural resources, or provide an excuse to factor in these costs if certain ecosystem services are destroyed or irreparably damaged. 

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project has estimated that bees and other pollinating insects are worth €153 billion Euros to the EU each year. Claire Brown explained that, “These do have economic value as well as cultural value and we know from current scientific knowledge that these ecosystem services are degrading and some of them are degrading at a very fast rate.”

Ian Dickie, a spokesperson for the Aldergate Group, which represents large businesses in the UK, said the companies had an interest in preserving these services, as they provide a valuable asset for them. He said that, by attributing monetary values to ecosystem services, it helps businesses and governments see environmental processes in the same terms as other factors they deal with. However, former science editor Mr Radford pointed out that this may have detrimental aspects as shareholder pressure and the potential for looking at potentially irreversible damage to the environment in purely monetary terms could lead to a casual attitude to our ecosystems.

Bob Watson, who has been instrumental in bringing climate and environmental science into government policy making, said that a number of recent assessment and reports have shown the value, not necessarily merely monetary, of these ecosystem services. He said, “We need to put a value on [ecosystem services], but it doesn’t need to be pounds, shillings. There is value from a monetary perspective, but also shared social values.”

He said that, so far, value had only been ascribed to certain tangible ecosystem services. He explained, “We have only valued those services which already have market value to date; the provisioning of food; the provisioning of timber. We have not yet put value on the way they clean our environment, the way they control floods, the way they control disease, their implications on mental health, the way they control our air, our climate and as such we have undervalued the really crucial services that we humans rely on.”

Governments are beginning to realise value of ecosystem services

Professor Watson went on to suggest that governments were beginning to recognise the importance of the natural environment and implement that at an international level. He used the example of the Common Agricultural Policy, saying “We are beginning to recognise the value and pay farmers to protect these ecosystems.”

However, Tony Juniper, an environmentalist and writer, pointed out that Chancellor George Osborne had publicly suggested that he sees the environment as an impediment to business and is pushing to cut back on regulation as part of the government’s “war on red tape” which instead of leading to greater consideration for Britain’s natural environment would lead to more damaging developments.

Tim Radford also explained that science does not fully understand the interplay between ecosystem services and the benefits they provide. The alarming decline in biodiversity cannot fully be explained, and, as such, suggested that the environment should be given a greater value than other mere commodities, as it is the founding factor on which all of humanity relies.  

Bob Watson agreed to an extent, and stated that restoring damaged ecosystems, such as wetlands and forests in the EU is already underway and that not only environmental departments, but other government departments have already begun factoring environmental considerations into their policies. However, he stressed the need to act without delay, as ecosystems can only be restored, not reinvented. Will Evison, an environmental economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, stated that, if monetary value was placed on ecosystems and the services they provide, there are irreversible degradations and threshold effects which cannot be valued or would have an infinitesimally high value.

The panel agreed that efforts, including doing away with “perverse subsidies”, including CAP subsidies, under which the annual payment per cow is larger than the average income of the poorest two billion people on the planet, and more equitable distribution of wealth and resources, including the REDD initiative, which sees payments going to countries for leaving their forests intact, reducing the incentive for degradation, would form a large part of the transition to a more sustainable economy, which would ease stress on the environment.

Tim Radford concluded that “We are moving from a sense of quiet desperation towards a guarded optimism, in which we recognise that there are things we can do, there are possibilities, but we would not put our money on achieving them overnight.”

Bob Watson, who had the last word, advocated a paradigm shift in the attitude of government and businesses. Echoing calls which have been issued by groups from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to the UK Food Group (a collection of farming, consumer and environmental NGOs) he said,  “The message to the world is that business as usual is totally and utterly unsustainable, whether it’s in the energy sector, the agricultural sector or any other sector so we have to point out what will happen if we continue with businesses as usual, but we have to stress that there are solutions.”  

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