Economic Values Flashcards
What are indirect values?
Benefits provided by biodiversity that do not involve harvesting or destroying the resource
What kind of processes are indirect values?
environmental processes and ecosystem services
Where do indirect values not show up?
do not show up in the states of national economics
What are examples of indirect values?
- ecosystem productivity
- protecting water resources
- protecting soils
- regulation of climate
- water disposal
- species relationships
- recreation and ecotourism
- educational and scientific value
- environmental monitoring
What is ecosystem productivity?
autotrophs form the basis of food chain
What are water resources(?) ?
watersheds, flooding and drought, water quality
What lessens flooding?
increased water-holding capacity
What does filtration do?
filters water/waterborne diseases
What can dams do?
change hydrological cycles
Why do soils need to be protected?
ensures soil of appropriate structure and composition
What does vegetation control?
erosion
Why is silt harmful?
harmful to aquatic organisms, decreases water quality, and fills up reservoirs
On what levels is the climate regulated?
local, regional, and global
How is the climate regulated?
- shade and transpiration (temperature and wind control)
- carbon fixation and oxygen release
What does a decrease in carbon dioxide fixation result in?
global warming
What is waste disposal?
- breaking down and immobilizing pollutants
- decomposition by microbes
What are species relationships?
many productive use species dependent on other species for food, etc
What are the types of species relationships?
- pollinators
- seed dispersers
- decomposers
- symbiotic relationships
What is bean root-bacteria symbiosis (indirect value)?
root nodules have N fixing bacteria, helps get N cycle started
What are examples of recreation and ecotourism?
- enjoyment of nature
- sport hunting/fishing
- photography/animal viewing
- often has biggest impact on some local economies
What are types of educational and scientific value?
media, research, and entertainment
What are examples of consumptive uses of wildlife?
- commercial and sport hunting
- fur trapping
- commercial and sport fishing
What are non consumptive uses of wildlife?
- bird watching
- photography trips
- nature walks
What is environmental monitoring?
early warning systems seen in nature
What are examples of environmental monitoring?
lichen and mollusks
What is an option value?
the potential for a species to provide an economic benefit to human society at some point in the future
What is price estimation based on in option value?
difficult to put a price tag on, estimation based on previously discovered species
What are examples of option value?
- drugs and medicines
- pollution control agents
What is an existence value?
simply elicits a strong response in humans by existing
What are examples of existence value?
- charismatic species
- biological communities
- areas of scenic beauty
What are characteristics of common property resources?
- owned by society at large
- not assigned a monetary value
- used without paying for them
What are examples of common property resources?
- air
- water
- areas of waste disposal
- scenic beauty
How are common property resources changing?
- taxation
- penalties
- mandatory recycling
What are the types of direct use value?
consumptive and productive
What are consumptive direct use value?
resources consumed locally that do not appear in national or international marketplaces
How are consumptive direct use values assigned a value?
by considering how much local person would have to pay for item in open market (substitute cost approach)
How are consumptive direct use values traditionally controlled?
at local level, but these systems have been broken down
What is poor man’s energy crisis?
local fuelwood has been used up and no $ to buy fuel
What are productive direct used values?
products harvested from the wild and sold in commercial markets
How are productive direct use values priced?
usually undervalues because there can be tremendous mark up
What are examples of productive direct use values?
- Timber (most sig. short term)
- non-wood products (more valuable long term)
- biological agents
- chemical prospecting
- sources of genetic diversity
What are examples of drugs from the plant world first discovered in traditional medical practice (include medical use and plan name)?
- THC, antiemetic, marijuana
- Warfarin, anticoagulant, Sweet clover
- Sennoside A/B, laxative, Senna
What are horse shoe crabs an example of?
having multiple uses of a single resource
What are uses for horseshoe crabs?
- cheap fishing bait (eggs)
- food source for shorebirds and coastal fish
- promote tourism to bird-watching and sportfishing
- blood used to make limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL)
What is LAL used for?
a chemical used to detect bacterial contamination in injection-administered medications and vaccines
What is Reverb (company from video in class)?
- “green tour company”
- ex. power shows using solar energy
What is ecological economics?
studies that interaction between economic and ecological systems
What makes governments more likely to protect biological diversity?
when there is an economic incentive to do so
What are externalities?
hidden costs or benefits not borne by the participants of a transaction
What may happen if there are hidden costs?
the market may fail to maximize the net benefits to society as a whole
What are examples of externalities?
environmental damage to open-access resources (water, soil, air)
What is the tragedy of commons?
the value of the open-access resource is gradually lost to all of society
When can tragedy of the commons occur?
can occur when there is a lack of enforcement of regulations relating to common property
What are environmental/economic impact assessments?
considers present and future effects of a project on the environment
What kind of analysis is used in environmental/economic impact assessments?
cost-benefit analysis (the values gained vs the costs of the project or recourse use)
What are examples of things environmental/economic impact assessments are made on?
- natural resources
- air/water quality
- lives of indigenous people
- endangered species
What is the precautionary principle?
when there is uncertainty about the risks associated with a project, it is better to err on the side of doing no harm to the environment
Why are perverse subsidies done?
because many economic activities appear to be profitable even when they are actually losing money
How do governments often subsidize industries involved in environment-damaging activities?
- tax breaks
- direct payments or price supports
- cheap fossil fuels
- free water
- road networks
Why are discount rates used?
used by economists to calculate the present value of natural resources that will be harvested or used at some point in the future
A higher discount rate equals?
lower current values
What does the use of discounting propel?
propels development projects forward
What does assigning lower current values to natural resources often lead to?
shortsighted decisions to use resources right away and it minimizes the value of resources in the future
Common thinking is that resources harvested at some point in the future (high discount rate)…
…have a much lower value to the citizens of a developing country than equivalent resources harvested now
What is gross domestic product (GDP)?
measures all economic activity in a country (including non-beneficial)
What counts towards GDP?
waste and non-sustainable activities even though they may be destructive to the economy in the long run
What was the Exxon Valdez oil spill?
11 million gallons of oil spilled (260,000 barrels) in Alaska 1989
How was GDP affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill?
recorded as a net economic gain to US GDP due to expenditures associated with clean-up
What is happening at the Okefenokee Swamp?
- Twin Pines Minerals owns land adjacent to the swamp and wants to mine in it for a whitening agent
- would be harmful to swamp, reduce water availability
- Organizations want to establish swamp as a world heritage site to protect it
What is happening with Rivian plant?
- Rivian is an automaker that was lured by state of Georgia with incentives to build a large plant on I-20
- Rivian pulled out/paused because of local controversy (have since started again)
