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Last year, a Deutsche Bank economist reported that the world was losing between $2 trillion and $5 trillion worth of natural capital every year due to deforestation alone. While some will dispute that claim (and others will still deny climate change), placing a dollar value on nature seems to be an increasingly popular approach to garnering support for species and habitat conservation. Many of the world's precious ecosystems are worth much more to people if they are left intact than they are worth destroyed—often for single-use purposes like logging a forest, for example. It seems the healthy air argument isn't enough, but efforts have been picking up around the world to encourage conservation in order to boost struggling economies (and maintain healthy ones).
It's a global trend
Managers of Guyana's Iwokrama rainforest have been taking this approach, and started making profits when they looked to the forest as a renewable resource: they began programs to harvest the region's assets, such as timber, honey, and oils, in a sustainable manner. And less than two years ago, it sold a license for measuring the rainforest's "ecosystem services," wherein the London-based Canopy Capital now owns the rights to create a financial deal for the forest's services.
Last year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation committed $50 million to help conservation efforts in eight biodiversity hotspots, and the Emirates Wildlife Society announced a $33 million species conservation fund.
Big brands join the fight
The Save Your Logo campaign, launched late last year, creates a platform for companies with a plant or animal in their logo to take part in the conservation of that species. Everyone knows the Lacoste alligator, for example. Earlier this year, the brand launched the "campana" collection, committing to supporting projects protecting the endangered crocodile, alligator, caiman or gavial species, some of whose populations are already down to just a few in some areas of China and the Amazon.
The Save Your Logo campaign is part of a larger recognition that at risk, along with the species itself, is the biological balance that sustains their entire habitats—and other species that depend on them. Conservation by other partner brands includes dolphins and the eagle, and the campaign has attracted a range of sponsors, including the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank and IUCN, all with the idea of attracting co-financing from the private sector.
Of course, buying areas of land doesn't mean their automatic preservation. These deals must come with legitimate efforts to conserve habitats and the species that depend on them, and sustainable practices must still be adopted by communities around the world.
But the recognition that wiping out an ecosystem is financially detrimental to a community, and in some cases to resources that the global economy depends on, is a big step in the right direction. As the international Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity initiative says, "You cannot manage what you do not measure."
