FINISHING LINES FINISHING LINES FINISHING LINES

The new environmentali$m?

T

o the wild beat of drums, two dancers in a Chinese lion

suit hurled themselves around a circle of several dozen
scientists and conservation professionals at a Washington,
DC reception. It was the ceremonial launch, late in 2006, of a
new collaboration called The Natural Capital Project. The
goal of this unprecedented partnership between Stanford
University, The World Wildlife Fund, and The Nature
Conservancy, is to shore up environmental resources in
Africa, China, and California, while showcasing the link
between conservation and economic welfare. The lion dance
is a traditional appeal for good luck.
Well need it, says Stanford Biology Professor Gretchen
Daily, who is spearheading the effort
together with TNCs Peter Kareiva
and WWFs Taylor Ricketts.
Entreaties based on lofty ideals,
morals, and aesthetics have so far
failed to turn back the forces of environmental ruin. Daily and colleagues
have therefore been making the controversial case for several years that
its time to emphasize the bottom
line. As we say on Wall Street, if
you want something done, youve
got to appeal to fear or greed,
Goldman Sachs former managing
director Larry Linden told the group.
Altruism doesnt get you very far.
Scientists and economists elsewhere have come to the same blunt conclusion, a variation of
which could be seen in last years Stern review: the economics of
climate change, published in Britain. This report warned that
the costs of failure to confront climate change could run from
520% of global GDP, whereas the problem could be addressed
for 1% of that total.
The basic error in the way we calculate GDPs is that
theyve never included the huge economic value of ecosystems. Forests help purify water and control soil erosion, for
example, and coral reefs nurture fish. The Natural Capital
Project will try to correct this omission by developing new
tools and by mapping ecosystem services to incorporate the
value of natural life-support systems in land-use decision
making. Daily and other project leaders intend to work with
would-be investors at all levels of government and business.
They also hope to woo a major constituency often slighted
in previous conservation efforts: impoverished rural people
who live close to the land and are most immediately harmed
by the decline in ecosystem services.
I would dearly like to see the Natural Capital Project or
really, any meaningful conservation project succeed.
However, I do have three big concerns about this one. First,
whos willing to buy? Several speakers at the Washington conference cited ongoing investments in nature including the
now classic case in which New York City paid to conserve an
WWF/Jill Hatzai

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www.frontiersinecology.org

upstate watershed to help ensure clean

drinking water. Chinas government has
similarly embarked on a massive tree-planting program to control soil erosion. But in these and most other
cases, all payments are being made by governments, whose
resources are limited. There are some enticing examples in
which people have actually taxed themselves to pay for conservation in Napa, CA, for example and others where companies, such as Perrier, have paid to restore the ecosystems on
which they depend. However, this trend will have to be ramped
up quite a bit before I start feeling more hopeful.
Second, what is the best way to make the case for natural
assets over relatively unnatural ones?
With nearly one-fifth of the Amazon
forest already lost to logging, ranching,
and farming, many scientists (and nonscientists) are justifiably alarmed. The
Washington conference was filled with
speculation about funding sources to
preserve standing trees for their ecosystem values. Many attendees were
hopeful that parties to the Kyoto climate talks might endorse a mechanism
called avoided forestation, in which
governments or corporations needing
to reduce their carbon footprint could
invest in preserving forests. Yet if buyers are looking for quick carbon storage, why wouldnt they choose the
more efficient strategy of growing trees on plantations? I dont
yet see a solution to this problem.
The meeting also featured sharply divergent views on another widely supposed forest benefit: the promotion of rainfall.
The Amazon expert Thomas Lovejoy, whose many achievements include coming up with the debt-for-nature concept,
told me he has been trying to sell Brazils president, Lula da
Silva, on a conservation project based on the assumption that
40% of rainfall in the countrys agricultural south originates
from the Amazon forest. Yet at the same conference, Ian
Calder, Director of the Centre for Land Use and Water
Resources Research at Newcastle University (Newcastle upon
Tyne, UK), gave a presentation concluding that the jurys still
out on the relationship between forests and rainfall.
Finally, dont people already realize the connection between
ecosystem loss and long-term financial impacts? Isnt the
greater problem that humans are short-term thinkers? Daily
remains optimistic. Theres a lot of uncertainty, in everything
from the basic science to its application in diverse cultural settings around the world, she acknowledges, but were off to a
very promising start.
I wish her and her colleagues luck. They deserve it, and, like
Daily says, theyll need it.
Katherine Ellison
www.katherineellison.com
The Ecological Society of America