>
>
> By Richard Black
> Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Barcelona http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
> The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of  
> forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU- 
> commissioned study.
>
> It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5  
> trillion.
>
> The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that  
> forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon  
> dioxide.
>
> The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern  
> Review into the economics of climate change.
>
> It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World  
> Conservation Congress.
>
> Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers  
> to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in  
> ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the  
> Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.
>
> Capital losses
>
> Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader  
> Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs  
> losses on the financial markets.
>
> "It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening  
> every year, year after year," he told BBC News.
>
> "So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost,  
> within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that  
> at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5  
> trillion every year."
>
>
> The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and  
> Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU  
> presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.
>
> The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding  
> that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The  
> second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.
>
> Stern message
>
> Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline,  
> nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially  
> for free.
>
> So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps  
> through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon  
> dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.
>
> Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.
>
> The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on  
> the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends  
> directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.
>
> The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through  
> losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.
>
> Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change  
> into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences  
> of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe  
> the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting  
> or not halting the slide in biodiversity.
>
> "The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to  
> reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy  
> Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial  
> resources into forest preservation.
>
> "Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks  
> we run by not valuing it adequately."
>
> A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are  
> beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are  
> signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the  
> carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.
>
> Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in  
> terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument  
> is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing  
> for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something  
> different must be tried.
>
> Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an  
> era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of  
> the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest  
> protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.
>
> But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.
>
> "Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago,  
> their eyes would glaze over.
>
> "Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked  
> - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we  
> do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such  
> and such business."
>
> The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the  
> date by which governments are committed under the Convention of  
> Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity  
> loss.
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> Story from BBC NEWS:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm





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