Can the Irreplaceable be Tradeable?

Memoriam - Rachel McDonnell

My partner runs his environmental consultancy from home, and consequently there is a phrase I sometimes hear drifting through the house: Ecosystem Services.  I can’t bring myself to like it.  Firstly, it is jargon, and the thing about jargon is that it excludes those who don’t know what it means from the conversation.  Secondly, it seems to me that it exemplifies something about the way that we treat the natural world which I find… disquieting.  

For those not in the know, Ecosystem Services are the things that the ecosystem does for us:  acting as a carbon sink, provision of clean air and water, benefitting our mental and physical health, and so on.  It neatly, clinically, captures the idea that the environment is useful, essential to us all, and without it we could not exist.  I suppose what I find worrisome about the idea is that it seems to imply that the value of the ecosystem rests on what it can do for us, and that it feels related to the idea of putting a monetary value on its functions, making them tradeable.  However much it discomforts me, though, is this a necessary evil?  In a world driven by money, quantifying environmental damage in monetary terms may be the only way of grabbing the attention of those in power. 

Economists call those costs or benefits of an economic transaction which aren’t generally taken into account when working out whether that transaction makes economic sense “externalities”.  Thus, the true cost of building a road should include not only how much it costs to build, but the cost of replacing and remediating any environmental damage done.  

Then arises the question of how much any damage might cost to replace, which is of course debatable:  is an area of ancient forest really replaced by the planting of saplings, no matter how numerous?  Of course not, laudable though it might generally be to plant saplings.  Ancient and complex ecosystems are not so easily replaced.  Consequently, it would take an awful lot of habitat creation to in any way compensate for the loss of a relatively small area of ancient woodland, wetland, or whatever it might be. 

With a project such as HS2, things could undoubtedly have been done so much better.  The Wildlife Trusts produced a report which suggested ways in which the project could have been a positive thing for the environment, that it has ended up as a missed opportunity.  I cannot quite put my finger on whether the problem is that this project, and others, have drastically underestimated the true (economic) value of the habitats they destroy, and so have not got anywhere near making up for the damage they have done, or whether that initial underestimation of the true cost has led them to choose a route/means of construction which is in fact more costly than other options, though they might cost more to build.  Or perhaps it is that neither of these really captures the irreplaceable nature of many of the habitats destroyed:  they simply cannot be replaced by public amenities such as parks, or new woodland. 

Is it that an attitude towards nature which monetises the natural world is simply inimical with preservation of the environment?

Aland - Rachel McDonnell

However, decisions have to be made, tradeoffs are sometimes inevitable.  Most environmentalists would support offshore wind power generation, despite the face that low flying birds often fall foul of them, and the damage to the seabed is considerable, because without decarbonisation of our energy provision the birds and marine environment in general will suffer a far larger impact from climate change.  Within that context of making decisions, though, we should have a much greater appreciation of the precious, irreplaceable nature of the natural world, particularly ancient ecosystems such as some of the woods and wetlands destroyed to make way for HS2.  Sometimes, if there is a good enough reason, if there is overall environmental benefit, we may find that some damage is justifiable, but it really should be a very last resort.  If we find we might be endangering a particularly special, complex, ecosystem, we should stop short in our tracks, and ask ourselves if there is another way.  We should be listening to environmental advocates, doing environmental impact assessments, and indeed actually being guided by what they find. 

We need a shift away from environmental box ticking, towards a culture of genuine respect, perhaps even awe, for the natural environment’s complexity, and the sheer time it takes for that complexity to build up.  It is irreplaceable.

When I was a teenager I read a book which profoundly affected my outlook on the world, and which feels ever more relevant to our current situation:  Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.  Towards the end of the book they expound a view as to why we should be trying our hardest to save endangered species (and the environments which they inhabit, and of which they are a bellwether), through a retelling of the story of the Sybilline Books.

In this story, the inhabitants of a city are offered, by an old woman, a set of books containing all of the knowledge and wisdom in the world for the price of a sack of gold.  They, in their prosperous city, laugh at her and refuse, and she burns half the books and goes away for a year.  During that year times are a little harder, but when the woman returns they still laugh as she offers the remaining books, this time for twice the price.  Over the following winter the city suffers with disease and famine, but recovers a little by the time the old woman comes back again the following year with the remaining quarter of the books.  This time they don’t laugh, but after some hesitation, and because the price has doubled again, they send her on her way, after she has burnt two of the remaining three books.  Returning again in the spring, she finds a city on its knees, and ready to pay her an expected 8 bags of gold, but she wants 16.  They have only 16 bags of gold remaining, but they are desperate, and pay they do.  The story ends with the old lady setting off across the plain with two oxcarts full of gold, leaving the people of the city to do the best they can with the remaining twelfth of all the knowledge and wisdom there had been in the world.