Ecosystem accounting is a technique used to quantify the monetary value of a change in the level of a good or service. This technique is based in economic theory and information that can be used to evaluate trade-offs in biodiversity conservation policy choices. Biodiversity underlies the provision of all ecosystem services, and is a frequent target of payment for ecosystem services schemes. Time gaps between forest loss and environmental constraints from excessive human expansion may provide a narrow window of opportunity to conserve a diversity of species for the continuity of ecosystems. Short-term economic concerns still hold precedence over long-term conservation goals. Ecosystem Accounting is a potential solution for balancing the dynamic between conservation and conversion.

Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Possibilities and Pitfalls of ecosystem accounting to support the delivery of biodiversity conservation

Key Questions

    Strengths

  1. What are the strengths and advantages of ecosystem accounting?
  2. What are the strengths regarding the delivery of biodiversity conservation?
  3. How does it support the delivery of biodiversity conservation?
  4. What are other frameworks to support biodiversity conservation?
  5. Other strengths?

    Weaknesses

  1. What are the weaknesses and disadvantages of ecosystem accounting?
  2. What are the weaknesses regarding the delivery of biodiversity conservation?
  3. Which other frameworks have similar weaknesses to support biodiversity conservation?
  4. Other weaknesses?

    Possibilities

  1. What is the potential of ecosystem accounting to become a good framework to support the delivery of biodiversity conservation?
  2. Is there potential for enhancing the effectiveness of the framework?
  3. What can be achieved with the framework?
     

    Pitfalls

  1. Which are the pitfalls in developing ecosystem accounting into a good practice framework to support the delivery of biodiversity conservation?
  2. Could there be problems in effectiveness?
  3. Could there be problems of acceptance?
  4. What could happen to biodiversity conservation if ecosystem accounting is not applied properly?

Answers

    Strengths

  1. As the marginal costs of damage to ecosystem services rise with their increasing scarcity, ecosystem accounting helps to make land transfer decisions with full understanding of their prospective value beyond real estate and development potential.
  2. Ecosystem accounting supports the delivery of biodiversity conservation (covering life forms, ecosystems and ecological processes) by measuring the impacts of land conversion on rare and endangered fauna and flora.
  3. When the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services exceeds the values from conversion, then it is socially desirable to conserve biodiversity. When landowners receive more benefits from biodiversity and ecosystem services than from conversion, it is privately desirable to conserve biodiversity.
  4. Willingness to pay (WTP) is frequently used as a proxy for the actual value of ecosystem services.
  5. Expose strategic ecosystem structure allocation gaps where more attention is needed to influence the response to biodiversity loss.

    Weaknesses

  1. There is uncertainty to quantify biodiversity´s contribution to human welfare in economic terms.
  2. There is strong dependency on data. Identifying, explaining and measuring biodiversity is a difficult task.
  3. Economists use contingent valuation methods to value species by asking consumers how much they would be willing to pay to conserve biodiversity, or how much they would accept in compensation for the depletion of biodiversity. The two methods give different answers based on individual preferences and not all values are accepted by everyone. The value of biodiversity should not be limited to individual preferences.
  4. Administration and policy makers fear to implement ecosystem accounting because of the costs and long duration of the assessment procedure.

    Possibilities

  1. There is potential to use ecosystem accounting in the interest of better stewardship. But, that depends on the intentions of policy makers. One potential is to document biodiversity loss. This requires putting a scarcity value for biodiversity (cost of aggregate growth). The higher the measured value of biodiversity, the more should be conserved. There is also potential to document losses of ecosystem functions.
  2. The relation between losses of diversity and losses of ecosystem function can be used to convince the public and policy makers about the need to conserve biodiversity.
  3. The framework (a) allows us to estimate private and public value from nature from lands, (b) uses ecological data to identify and quantify ecosystem services, (c) translates the production of services into economic benefits, (d)helps determine economic benefits.

    Pitfalls

  1. There are pitfalls caused by different interests of experts: Conservation Biologists tend to reject ecosystem accounting for deciding whether to preserve. Ecologists and Economists have different modes of calculating values. The Ecologist favors estimating the value of biodiversity attributes. Economists look at the consequences of biodiversity depletion for production and consumption.
  2. To account for biodiversity loss judiciously it is necessary to value natural functions in order to subtract the loss. This requires ecological knowledge and data, economic methods and economic data, and integration of ecological and economic analysis.
  3. Missing public acceptance because the utilitarian contribution of biodiversity to human welfare has low priority to the people that can still manage to live well in a full world, without large quantities of biodiversity.
  4. If accounting protocols are not ratified with implementation, execution and monitoring measures, institutions will not have an instrument explicitly pushing biodiversity conservation.

    Conclusions

  • Ecosystem accounting is a comprehensive framework with an excellent guiding effect to establish reference strategy for biodiversity conservation. Although biodiversity conservation is complementary to other pursuits of human well-being, ecosystem accounting is a potential solution for aligning private and public interests for balancing the dynamic between conservation and conversion.
  • Economists and ecologists should make the effort to express ecosystem impacts in terms of changes in the ecosystem goods and services that people value.
Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Possibilities and Pitfalls of ecosystem accounting to support the delivery of biodiversity conservation