What Is Nature Worth?

BirdNote^®

What Is Nature Worth?

Written by Todd Peterson

This is BirdNote!
[Ringing of cash register; tremolo call of a loon]
What is nature worth? Can its value be quantified? Some ecological economists and policy-makers say it’s important to have a common language of value when making decisions about land use and environmental management.
Dr. Robert Costanza of Portland State University says that nature provides us with many services that we can value – services for which we would otherwise have to pay dearly. Wetlands, for example, help protect us from hurricanes and floods and purify surface waters.
[Lively sounds of wetlands and the lapping of water]
Dr. Costanza and his colleagues calculated the value of the ecosystem services of the State of New Jersey. They determined that freshwater wetlands in the state rendered services worth about $11,000 per acre per year, and the state’s beaches provide services worth about $42,000 per acre per year. [Wave hits a beach] They calculated the total value of New Jersey’s ecosystem services at approximately $18 billion a year, about as economically valuable as the state’s construction industry.
[Skill saw and hammering at a construction site]    
Studies like these help us understand the economic consequences of altering natural habitats.
[Return to sounds of lively wetland]  
[Better recognizing and quantifying how nature contributes to our sustainable well-being can only help us appreciate and value it more.]
For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.
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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Tremolo call and wail call of the Common Loon recorded by S.R. Pantle; wetland at Malheur Wildlife Refuge recorded by G.F. Budney.
Construction ambient recorded by C. Peterson.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2012 Tune In to Nature.org     September 2012     Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# 082007worth   value-01b