The Invisible Value of Nature
As a registered UK Charity, we are a purpose focused organisation that operates to leave the environment to our heirs (all of humanity) in the same state, or better, than which we received it from our forebears.
The environment is valuable to all but in different ways and measures. If you work in agriculture or mining or in the timber industry you may value natural forests in a way that will be different to how local communities value their local habitat. One party will place their commercial interests of nature ahead of the other group that considers it a home to native flora and fauna, and a place of aesthetic beauty.
This is a problem we know as the Economic invisibility of Nature.
“We use nature because she is valuable We loose nature because it is free” – Pavan Sukhdev
Natural resources need to be valued in our economic systems. For example, traditional capital markets and financial systems do not place any monetary value on standing forests and their services (cleaning area, a home to native flora and fauna, places of recreation), but only consider the value of clearing for agriculture. Same applies to air we breathe and water to sustain humanity.
As the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) points out in its recent Global Assessment Report, “Nature is essential for human existence and good quality of life.” Yet decisions about the uses of our increasingly fragile natural resources and how to protect them often fail to account for all of the ways that different communities attach value to nature.
Governments around the world now must focus on “the diverse values of nature” to all different participants. As society does not measure the income that nature gives us (clean air to breath, fresh water, rich soil, trees), we therefore do not account for what cost humanity pays when nature is lost. environment4change is building a movement to fight to preserve nature, biodiversity and everything that entails.