UVM's Gund Institute puts a price tag on nature

Imagine assigning a monetary value to bees pollinating a meadow. Or assessing the economic value of wetlands that provide critical habitat to endangered species and prevent coastal communities from being flooded. Right now, a... See more » Imagine assigning a monetary value to bees pollinating a meadow. Or assessing the economic value of wetlands that provide critical habitat to endangered species and prevent coastal communities from being flooded. Right now, a logging company can put a price tag on a forest's uncut timber, and a real estate agent can assess the fair market value of undeveloped fields. But neither can measure, in actual dollars and cents, what those undisturbed ecosystems are worth in terms of the human benefits they already provide. That ability will soon be at our fingertips. Experts at the University of Vermont's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics have launched an ambitious new project to assign monetary values to all the world's ecosystems based on the natural functions they perform -- from regulating climate to purifying water, replenishing soil to providing recreational opportunities. The science of "ecosystem services" is revolutionizing the field of conservation by giving environmentalists and land-use planners tools for factoring nature into the cost of doing business. Ultimately, they hope, it will marshal the forces of the marketplace to encourage sustainable human activities and discourage unsustainable ones. The project is the brainchild of Robert Costanza, founder and director of the Gund Institute. In May 1997, he published a now-famous article in the journal Nature in which he argues that, because the Earth's natural life-support systems contribute to human welfare, they represent a significant portion of the world's total economic worth. Costanza estimates the combined value of the world's ecosystems at about $33 trillion per year, in current U.S. dollars. For comparison, the combined gross national product of all the world's countries totals about $18 trillion per year. Historically, economists and environmentalists have been averse to assigning monetary values to those things often described as "God's creation," Constanza explains. The traditional business model holds that, because such resources as clean air and clean water aren't manufactured or owned by anyone and can be accessed for little or no cost, they have no monetary worth. The benefits they provide -- to companies, cities, states or countries -- are considered "externalities" that needn't be factored into anyone's bottom line. The traditional model of environmentalism, on the other hand, holds that nature has its own intrinsic worth. Often described as "priceless," the biosphere's social, cultural and spiritual value cannot be quantified in purely economic terms. This approach assumes that it's perilous to put a monetary value on, say, Lake Champlain or Yosemite National Park, because they would then be viewed as commodities, subject to the whims of the marketplace and available for buying and selling. Constanza isn't advocating the privatization of nature. But the problem, he points out, is that neither approach to nature adequately accounts for the fact that ecosystems are affected by human activities all the time -- usually to their detriment. Assigning an ecosystem a monetary value of zero or infinity makes it impossible to calculate its financial impact on the human economy. As Costanza puts it, "Just because it's hard to measure these things doesn't mean we should leave them out. In fact, those are just the things we should pay the most attention to." The goal of the Gund Institute's new project, he explains, is to reframe the entire debate by capturing that economic impact so it can be factored into environmental and land-use decisions. Thanks to a recent $813,000 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Institute has begun collecting data, building computer models, and compiling scientific research from around the world to begin assigning those values. Eventually, anyone with access to the Internet will be able to pick a spot on Earth -- a tract of wilderness, a watershed, a state, even the entire planet -- and calculate the combined value of that area's See less »

The goal of the Gund Institute's new project, he explains, is to reframe the entire debate by capturing that economic impact so it can be factored into environmental and land-use decisions. Thanks to a recent $813,000 grant from...