Valuing Nature Lecture 3 - Kelvin

Question 1

What are some indicators for the state of biodiversity?

Answer 1

• Species population trends.
• Extinction risk.
• Habitat extent and condition.
• Community composition.

Question 2

What are some indicators of pressures on ecosystems?

Answer 2

• Resource consumption
• Invasive alien species
• Nitrogen pollution.
• Overexploitation.
• Climate change impacts

Question 3

What are some indicators for responses on ecosystems?

Answer 3

• Extent and biodiversity coverage of protected areas.
• Sustainable forest management.
• Policy responses to invasive alien species.
• Biodiversity-related aid.

Question 4

T/F The decline in global biodiversity is not having a negative impact on human livelihoods.

Answer 4

F

Question 5

What are the benefits and services that ecosystems provide underpinned by?

Answer 5

Biodiversity

Question 6

What can valuing ecosystem services do?

Answer 6

1. Raise awareness and build public and government support for better decisions
2. Demonstrate additional benefits from conservation of species/sites/habitats
3. Identify the cost and benefits of conservation and spread them more fairly among stakeholders.
4. Enhance economic sustainability and human well-being

Question 7

Why are ecosystem services excluded from (monetary) decisions?

Answer 7

Because they don’t enter the market/ are provided for free

Question 8

what ecosystem has the highest value per ha in terms of ecosystem provisions?

Answer 8

Coral reefs

Question 9

What is natural capital?

Answer 9

The natural stock, from which people derive benefits. One subset of this stock is ecosystems, and the benefits are then called ecosystem services

Question 10

What are the problems with applying economics to the environment?

Answer 10

• Incomplete information
• Markets assume all decisions are rational
• Economic can;t deal with non-linearities.
• No international agreements on market values for ecosystem services
• Putting them into markets means they can be traded

Question 11

What are the issues to be aware of when valuing nature?

Answer 11

1. Bias towards services that are ‘tangible’ and can be measured.
2. No standardised approach
3. Economics not fit-for-purpose
4. Trade-offs between services and with biodiveristy
5. Is not the ‘silver bullet’