The Economics Of Ecosystems And Biodiversity Research Articles

Transforming the Yardstick Used to Measure Benefits From the Farm Sector

Traditional systems of accounting for agricultural productivity focus solely on yield-based contributions and totally ignore the biodiversity and ecosystem services derived from agriculture. The study uses a framework and approaches developed under ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) AgriFood ‘initiative to demonstrate the hidden values of Agri-systems through valuation of agro-ecological elements using subsidies for hidden costs and incentivizing unaccounted benefits. These unaccounted benefits could be monetized through policy and economic instruments to supplement farmers’ income. The paper recommends a mix of policy and fiscal interventions such as Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) or Remuneration of Positive Externalities (RPE), tax rebates, and subsidies which can promote sustainable agricultural practices.

State and the Commodification of Natural Resources: A Framework of Analysis

The commodification of nature and framing of the environment as natural resources have become increasingly prominent in international environmental governance discuss because most natural resources are traded through organised commodity exchanges. The result the depletion of natural resources with the attendant negative impact on the environment and the poor. Commodification has brought about the framing of the environment as a ‘natural resource’ and has become increasingly prominent in international environmental governance. The role of international organisations like the World Bank, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) through Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and its adoption by the Convention on Biological Conservation are indications of the concepts wide-ranging appeal. This paper sees commodification and the role of different actors as putting a price on nature’s goods in the form of species banking and conservation finance as a strategy for solving a range of environmental problems from climate change to deforestation. The paper concluded that commodification should be seen as an approach to bringing ethics into natural resources management, capable of generating incentives that are required to guide people towards ethical use of natural resources to the advantage of all.

Scientific approaches to assessment of the ecosystem services of the nature protected areas

Relevance of research topic. Assessing ecosystems in terms of their contribution to the human well-being is one of the ways to achieve the goals of sustainable development, namely within the implementation of goals 14 and 15, therefore, it is an extremely important task in developing strategies for the development of local communities. Formulation of the problem. There is no official methodology for assessing ecosystem services and its integration into the management system in Ukraine. Analysis of recent research and publications. Currently, approaches to the assessment of ecosystems and their services are being developed, which are presented in the leading international documents: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting. Final Draft. Version 5. Selection of unexplored parts of the general problem. The issues of forming methodological approaches to the assessment of ecosystem services of protected areas of communities remain little studied. Setting the task, the purpose of the study. In this study, the task is to assess the ecosystem services of the protected area of the community basing on the example of cultural services (recreation and tourіsm) and services for biodiversity conservation. Method or methodology for conducting research. To assess the cost of ecosystem services in the protected area, a methodological approach to estimating the overall economic value of ecosystems is used. Presentation of the main material (results of work). On the example of the protected area of NPP "Bug Guard" within Blagodatnenskaya OTG Pervomaisky district of Mykolayiv region calculated the cost of direct and indirect use of ecosystem services (considered cultural services) and the cost of its existence (considered services to preserve biodiversity), as well as the total economic value. The field of application of results. The calculations are of great practical importance for territorial management. Conclusions according to the article The paper proves that the cost of indirect use of ecosystem services of the protected area and the cost of its existence significantly outweigh the cost of direct use.

Кey signs of ecosystem assets valuation

The purpose of the article is to develop scientific approaches and identify key features of the assessment of ecosystem assets of territorial communities.
 The article examines modern scientific approaches to the assessment of ecosystem assets of territorial communities in the context of deepening processes of decentralization of management. The essence of the definition of ecosystem assets from the standpoint of ecosystem accounting is revealed, in particular, it is focused on one of their main characteristics: the ability of natural reserves (stocks) to provide a constant flow (flow) of ecosystem services. The necessity of taking into account the market value of ecosystem assets in the process of monitoring their use and involvement in economic circulation at the local level has been determined. In this sense, the role of ecosystem services in providing links between ecosystem assets and benefits is considered. The main characteristics of ecosystem assets are investigated, their common and distinctive features from natural resource and production assets of spatial territorial entities are revealed. A systematization of generalized approaches to the methodology for assessing ecosystem assets according to the recommendations of the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), which is advisable to apply for territorial communities as key strategic guidelines for sustainable spatial development, is proposed. It is recommended to include the indicator “ecosystem assets” (EA) as a mandatory component of annual national accounts.
 Further research has prospects in the following areas:
 
 formation of an integrated strategic approach to the implementation of ecosystem asset valuation at the local level;
 development and implementation of effective methodological approaches to the assessment of ecosystem assets for the formation of investment attractiveness of the territory through the use of local natural resources as ecosystem assets for sustainable spatial development.

Nurturing natural capital

Nurturing natural capital

A global meta-analysis of the economic values of provisioning and cultural ecosystem services

Despite a growing demand to integrate ecosystem services into sustainability decision-making, our understanding of the global distribution of the economic value of ES is scarce. We extracted information from provisioning and cultural ecosystem services (PCES) from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) database using a meta-analytical approach. We then employed geostatistical methods to analyze the relationship between economic values and environmental and socio-economic predictors. Here we show that anthropogenic related factors such as accessibility, spatially explicit gross domestic product and ecosystem services scarcity explain global trends of PCES economic values. We observe higher PCES values in agricultural areas of strong human presence such as the British Isles, Southwest of Brazil and India and lower values in less disturbed natural areas. These findings highlight the decisive role that human systems play in the economic realization of PCES and caution that single-criterion sustainability and conservation policies aimed at maximizing the economic returns of PCES may not overlap with wild nature.

A meta-analysis of economic valuation of ecosystem services in Mexico

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the economic values for ecosystem goods and services in Mexico. We analyzed 106 studies that estimated an economic value for any given environmental good or service in the country. In total, we coded and classified 352 values according to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) and the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) ecosystem classification. We then estimated an econometric model to compare the value of different services in different ecosystems. We show that regulation services are more valuable than cultural and provisioning services, that wetlands are more valuable than forests and cultivated systems, and that deforestation for arable land is not cost-effective, because the regulation services of forests are more valuable than the provisioning services of crops. We also calculate the elasticity between the value of ecosystem services that forests provide in Mexico (in USD/hectare per year) and the supply of each ecosystem (in hectares). This elasticity is statistically significant and equal to −0.37. This estimate is relevant in policy terms, since it adds an economic rationale for conservation to other moral and philosophical criteria, especially in areas currently experiencing a high degree of deforestation and degradation.

Forest ecosystem services in rural areas of Germany: Insights from the national TEEB study

In Germany, forests cover approximately one third of the total land area, thereby providing a high variety of ecosystem services (ES), such as timber production, carbon sequestration, recreation, and other cultural services related to biodiversity protection. A national TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) report published recently focused on ES and biodiversity in rural areas. By drawing on insights from this report, the objective of this paper is to delineate: (i) which ES forests provide especially in the rural areas of Germany, (ii) what is known about the economic values these ES have for forest enterprises and the society, and (iii) if and how the provision of these ES can be safeguarded and possibly expanded. It is shown that the German public is in general highly appreciative of forests. Nevertheless, many of the societally desirable forest ES are not being marketed at the moment.

Property rights revisited – are narratives the way forward?

PurposeThis paper aims to show how property rights predominantly shape discussions about the governance of natural resources and thereby neglect questions of (collective) identities and alternative solutions to govern natural resources. The purpose is to introduce narratives as an alternative approach to the discussion about the governance of natural resources.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the question of how we acquire property and what that tells us about our understanding of to whom natural resources belong to, the paper reviews the history of property rights by looking into property theories starting from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It then takes a closer look at The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study and the Nagoya Protocol with regard to property rights. Second, the paper introduces the concept of narratives surrounding property rights in the past and present.FindingsProperty rights are a social concept dominant in the industrialised world. This has strong implications when looking at the way indigenous people look at natural resources. Mostly, property rights are unknown to them or alternative concepts exist. Yet, documents such as the Nagoya Protocol or the TEEB study presuppose an understanding of property rights originating in European property concepts. A narrative approach to property rights introduces new ideas and looks beyond legislation and policies at the stories people tell about property and natural resources, at property stereotypes and identities and what this might entail for future natural resource governance.Originality/valueThe paper fulfils a need to find alternative approaches to govern natural resources against the background of global environmental challenges.

Commodification of natural resources and forest ecosystem services: examining implications for forest protection

SUMMARYThrough the commodification of nature, the framing of the environment as a ‘natural resource’ or ‘ecosystem service’ has become increasingly prominent in international environmental governance. The economic capture approach is promoted by international organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). This paper will inquire as to how forest protection is related to issues of social and ecological justice, exploring whether forest exploitation based on the top-down managerial model fosters an unequitable distribution of resources. Both top-down and community-based approaches to forest protection will be critically examined and a more inclusive ethical framework to forest protection will be offered. The findings of this examination indicate the need for a renewed focus on existing examples of good practice in addressing both social and ecological need, as well as the necessity to address the less comfortable problem of where compromise appears less possible. The conclusion argues for the need to consider ecological justice as an important aspect of more socially orientated environmental justice for forest protection.

Progress in the researches on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)

生态系统与生物多样性经济学（The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity,TEEB）是生物多样性与生态系统服务价值评估、示范和政策应用的综合方法体系,为生物多样性保护和可持续利用提供了新的思路和方法。TEEB在2007年被首次提出,自2008年以来得到了联合国环境规划署的支持。生态系统服务包括供给服务、调节服务、文化服务和栖息地服务4大类,价值评估方法多采用市场价值法、显示性偏好法、陈述性偏好法等。本文总结了全球、区域、国家和地方等尺度的生物多样性主流化措施。目前,有30多个国家开展了TEEB国家研究,对生物多样性相关政策的制定产生了积极影响,并推动了TEEB的进一步应用：在国家层面可应用于绿色经济、可持续发展和企业绿色经营模式等;在国际层面可为《生物多样性公约》等相关国际行动提供支撑。今后生物多样性价值评估研究应重点关注：（1）在国际层面,要加强生物多样性跨行业、跨区域合作,加强科学研究与政策应用的衔接;（2）在我国,首先要分层次（生态系统、物种、基因）、分尺度（国家、省、地方）构建TEEB方法体系,其次积极探索将TEEB理念应用于地方发展考核、干部政绩考核、有偿使用制度和生态补偿制度等政策的途径,促进地区间公平与自然资源的可持续利用。

Hydrological services and the role of forests: Conceptualization and indicator-based analysis with an illustration at a regional scale

Forests are among the most important ecosystems for the provision of hydrological services. These include water supply and water damage mitigation, in the dimensions of quantity, timing and quality. Although the hydrological role of forests is well documented in the literature, a conceptual framework integrating these three dimensions is still missing. In this study, a comprehensive conceptual framework to improve the assessment of hydrological services provided by forests was developed. In addition, the framework was tested by an illustration for northern Portugal, a region with both Mediterranean and Atlantic climatic influences. The TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) framework of ecosystem services was adapted to the relation between forests and water. Then, this new framework was complemented with a set of spatially-explicit indicators that quantify the supply and demand of hydrological services. In addition, the implications of the framework were discussed in the context of the social-ecological systems, using the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts, and Responses) model. Finally, the framework and the indicators were illustrated for northern Portugal using the water supply (quantity) and soil erosion control as examples. Results show that the proposed conceptual framework is a useful tool to support land planning and forest management, adapting the provision of hydrological services to the regional biophysical and social conditions. The test of the framework across a heterogeneous region suggests that a spatially explicit combination of system property, function, service and benefit indicators can be an effective way of analysing and managing the supply and demand of the hydrological services.

Economic valuation of ecosystem services fails to capture biodiversity value of tropical forests

The reconciliation of biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service provision and agricultural production in tropical landscapes requires recognition of the trade-offs between competing land-uses. It is especially relevant for conservation planning to assess whether the economic value of ecosystem services is spatially congruent with biodiversity. Previous analyses have largely focused on ecosystem service provision or assumed homogeneous economic values across land uses within biomes. We relax this assumption by carrying out a spatially explicit meta-analysis based on 30 studies of ecosystem service values in tropical forests from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) database, while controlling for economic, environmental and methodological variables. Our results demonstrate a lack of spatial congruence between the economic value of ecosystem services and biodiversity in tropical forests. Instead, we find that economic value presents a nonlinear inverted-U relationship with site accessibility and economic activity, highlighting the importance of matching supply and demand between each ecosystem service and its beneficiaries for economic values to be realized. The implications are that conservation policies focusing solely on the economic value of ecosystem services will fail to protect biodiversity in remote and less disturbed regions.

Ecosystems functions and genetic diversity: TEEB raises challenges for the economics discipline

The prime product of the international TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) project is the book, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations. This article critically assesses the content of this book. Both global warming and biodiversity loss raise comparable economic issues because both threaten the sustainability of economic growth and human well-being. Therefore, it is not surprising that the TEEB project was motivated by the Stern Review of Climate Change. After outlining the genesis of the TEEB project and its objectives, this article examines its analysis of the economics of ecosystems. The project shows that the total economic value of some natural ecosystems is very high in some places (higher than the uniformed might imagine), but this only creates awareness of their potential absolute value. It does not indicate circumstances in which hominid transformation of these systems to alternative systems would increase or reduce economic benefits. The TEEB report considers ecosystems and biodiversity to be natural capital. This is too narrow a view because some human produced ecosystems and genetic material are valuable forms of capital, and the economics of changes and trade-offs in the composition of the genetic stock needs to be analysed. This is not considered in the TEEB findings. A conceptual model of genetic resources is provided in this article which might enable the economic analysis of genetic diversity to be extended. In order to rectify economic failures, the TEEB report seems to favour payments for ecosystem services (PES) but does not give enough attention to their drawbacks and alternatives. Political and institutional constraints on implementing economic policies also deserve more attention than given in TEEB. In general, economists need to give greater attention to interdisciplinary perspectives in formulating theories and in giving policy advice. However, academia currently provides little incentive for such an approach.

Paradoxes of Sustainable Development and Abandonment of Nature

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and various international environmental agencies have developed the concept of ‘ecosystem services’ and ‘natural resources’ todescribe ways in which humans benefit from healthy ecosystems. Biodiversity was recognized to be of great social and economic value to both present and future generations. According to its critics, resource approach of naturemight be inadequate in protecting non-human species that are not directly used for human welfare since the economic capture gives no grounding for prohibiting or even restricting their destruction. This article aims to examine environmental challenges through contesting discourses of sustainability and to discuss implications of these conceptions for the sustainable future for human security.

Ecosystem services inclusive strategic environmental assessment

A consistent framework to address biodiversity, ecosystem services and their societal values is now established with the MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) and the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). These and other studies point to the urgency in considering actions that can revert the process of degradation of biodiversity values and its supporting ecosystems. Safeguarding livelihoods is a common objective in ecosystem approaches as well as in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) effort to promote sustainability. Human activities, as direct and indirect development drivers, are crucial targets for SEA to have a strategic contribution in influencing priorities, by showing strategic reasons for change. Rather than keeping only a control and mitigation role on the assessment of effects and impacts of development on the environment, SEA has the capacity to understand the decisional and development context and to drive development opportunities into pathways that are inclusive of environmental and sustainability priorities. The development opportunities provided by ecosystem services can be explored in SEA through strategic approaches to enhance the value of the benefits and avoid the negative impact of human actions on ecosystem services. SENSU, a research team at IST-Portugal, advocates the strategic-based and collaborative oriented approach in SEA based on Partidario (2007) SEA framework of critical decision factors (CDF). A methodology to allow the consideration of ecosystem services in SEA is being developed and tested. This paper will share research advances on how ecosystem services can be incorporated into SEA as a fundamental component of strategic assessment in support of decision-making.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Recent Instances for Debate

After 1992 many conservation biologists thought that the use of economic instruments would be more effective to halt biodiversity loss than policies based on setting apart some natural spaces outside the market. At the same time there was a new elaboration of the concept of ecosystem services and, since 1997, there have been attempts at costing in money terms the loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, including the high profile TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) project (2008-2011). Our discussion rests on instances showing the analytical implications of three main socio-economic meanings of biodiversity loss: 1) the loss of natural capital; 2) the loss of ecosystem functions; and 3) the loss of cultural values and human rights to livelihood. We review several approaches to include economic considerations in biodiversity conservation. We show cases where monetary valuation is relevant and other cases where it is controversial and even counterproductive, as it undermines the objectives of conservation.

Accounting for Nature's Benefits: The Dollar Value of Ecosystem Services

Healthy ecosystems provide us with fertile soil, clean water, timber, and food. They reduce the spread of diseases. They protect against flooding. Worldwide, they regulate atmospheric concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide. They moderate climate. Without these and other “ecosystem services,” we’d all perish.1 One hallmark of the history of civilization is an ever-increasing exploitation of ecosystem services coupled with substitution of technology for these services, particularly where ecosystems have been exploited beyond their ability to provide.2 Agriculture is a hybrid of exploitation and substitution that enabled people to live in greater, denser populations that drove further exploitation and substitution. Modern plumbing made close quarters far less noxious but led to exploitation of ecosystems’ ability to break down sewage, and to substitution with expensive sewage treatment technologies. Exploitation of fossil fuels led to a slew of modern conveniences, including fishing fleets that are so effective at catching their prey that they threaten fisheries globally.3,4 All this exploitation strained ecosystems, but in the past, when the population was a fraction of what it is now, these strains were local rather than global phenomena. In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA),5 a sweeping survey conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, found that approximately 60% of 24 ecosystem services examined were being degraded or used unsustainably.6 “Every year we lose three to five trillion dollars’ worth of natural capital, roughly equivalent to the amount of money we lost in the financial crisis of 2008–2009,” says Dolf de Groot, leader of the Research Program on Integrated Ecosystem Assessment and Management at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. The value of ecosystem services typically goes unaccounted for in business and policy decisions and in market prices. For commercial purposes, if ecosystem services are recognized at all, they are perceived as free goods, like clean air and water. So it’s not surprising that much of the degradation of ecosystems is rooted in what the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an independent group of U.S. scientists and engineers, describes as “widespread under-appreciation of the importance of environmental capital for human well-being and . . . the absence of the value of its services from the economic balance sheets of producers and consumers.”7 PCAST and other groups are working to build recognition of ecosystem services and, importantly, to valuate them—that is, calculate values for these services to help policy makers and resource managers make rational decisions that factor important environmental and human health outcomes into the bottom line.

‘TEEB Begins Now’: A Virtual Moment in the Production of Natural Capital

This article uses theories of virtualism to analyse the role of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project in the production of natural capital. Presented at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the project seeks to redress the ‘economic invisibility of nature’ by quantifying the value of ecosystems and biodiversity. This endeavour to put an economic value on ecosystems makes nature legible by abstracting it from social and ecological contexts and making it subject to, and productive of, new market devices. In reducing the complexity of ecological dynamics to idealized categories TEEB is driven by economic ideas and idealism, and, in claiming to be a quantitative force for morality, is engaged in the production of practices designed to conform the ‘real’ to the virtual. By rendering a ‘valued’ nature legible for key audiences, TEEB has mobilized a critical mass of support including modellers, policy makers and bankers. We argue that TEEB's rhetoric of crisis and value aligns capitalism with a new kind of ecological modernization in which ‘the market’ and market devices serve as key mechanisms to conform the real and the virtual. Using the case of TEEB, and drawing on data collected at COP10, we illustrate the importance of international meetings as key points where idealized models of biodiversity protection emerge, circulate and are negotiated, and as sites where actors are aligned and articulated with these idealized models in ways that begin further processes of conforming the real with the virtual and the realization of ‘natural capital’.