There are more than 50 ways to measure the value of nature. But most of the research work and political decisions are limited to just one hand fully. This includes counting species or how much it would cost to replace a performance provided by nature. However, only taking monetary points of view can be harmful to people and the environment, according to the result of the world's largest investigation into environmental evaluation.
"Politics largely ignore the diverse importance of nature for people, especially for indigenous peoples and low-income communities," says the report of the World Biodiversity Council IPBES (Intergovernental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).
For example, in the case of proposals for hydroelectric power plants, the needs of the affected communities are often considered to be secondary to those of urban consumers – especially if the communities have to be relocated. This leads to the fact that people lose their livelihoods and are forced to change their way of life.
"Our failure to correctly measure biological diversity has led to a long-term decline in a variety of services that we receive from nature," said Anne Larigauderie, which the IPBES secretariat is headed in Bonn, at the presentation of the Report on July 11th. "The ability to pollinate crops or water regulation has been declining for 50 years."
According to Unai Pascual, an economist at the Basque Center for Climate Change in Leioa, Spain, there is clear evidence that assessing the environment using market prices contributes to the current biodiversity crisis. "Many other values are ignored in favor of short-term profit and economic growth," added Pascual, first author of the IPBES report.
139 Governments have accepted a summary of the report for political decision -makers. The full version is to be published before the UN Biodiversity Conference, which will take place in Canadian Montreal in December. One expects the delegates to agree on new goals for the preservation of biological diversity.
82 researchers from the fields of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities have identified 79,000 studies on environmental assessment and found that the number of publications has been increasing by ten percent annually for four decades. But few of these studies are considered by policymakers. The researchers selected 1163 studies for in-depth review and found that only five percent of the recommendations were adopted by the decision-makers.
Half of the studies that underwent an in-depth examination used biophysical quantities, such as the number of species or the amount of forest biomass. Another 26 percent cited monetary indicators: for example, the costs that would arise if people had to carry out pollination, or amounts that governments pay farmers for the conservation of biodiversity on agricultural land.
Only a fifth of the examinations assessed the biological diversity according to socio -cultural criteria such as the importance of a sacred site and the value that someone attaches to his hometown. Sociocultural values do not necessarily have a numerical size or a price tag. "The value of sacred sites does not have to be converted into dollars or euros," said IPBES-Mitutor Sander Jacobs, ecologist at the research institute for nature and forests in Brussels.
The authors of the report noted that most studies do not take such values into account, even if this has been shown to lead to better outcomes for the environment. Few scientists involve people living and working in regions with high biodiversity. Only two percent of the studies examined in detail stated that they had done so. "Involving stakeholders, including those who provide data and information, is usually very easy," the report says.
"We have to form associations of scientists from different disciplines. But science also needs allies," says Pascual. "Researchers should be modest and invite those who represent other specialties. Such a coalition could offer a solution-oriented approach to dealing with the biodiversity and climate crisis.«
