Woodlands and Wetlands Could be Worth More When Left to Nature Than When Farmed nakedcapitalism.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nakedcapitalism.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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The economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites outweigh the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use, according to the largest-ever study comparing the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it.
A research team led by the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and including Dr Kelvin Peh from the University of Southampton, analysed dozens of sites across six continents.
In this study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, scientists calculated the monetary worth of each site’s “ecosystem services”, such as carbon storage and flood protection, as well as likely dividends from converting it for production of goods such as crops and timber.
Economic benefits of protecting nature now outweigh those of exploiting it
Distant hills mark the start of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, one of the research sites.
Distant hills mark the start of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, one of the research sites.
“Even if you are only interested in dollars and cents, we can see that conserving and restoring nature is now very often the best bet for human prosperity”
Professor Andrew Balmford
A pair of blue monkeys in Kenya s Kakamega Forest, one of the 62 sites analysed as part of the latest research.
A pair of blue monkeys in Kenya s Kakamega Forest, one of the 62 sites analysed as part of the latest research.
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The economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites outweigh the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use, according to the largest-ever study comparing the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it.
A research team led by the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) analysed dozens of sites - from Kenya to Fiji and China to the UK - across six continents. A previous breakthrough study in 2002 only had information for five sites.
The findings, published in the journal
Nature Sustainability, come just weeks after a landmark report by Cambridge Professor Partha Dasgupta called for the value of biodiversity to be placed at the heart of global economics.
Economic benefits of protecting nature now outweigh those of exploiting it scienceblog.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scienceblog.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.