Costing the Earth: Investing in protecting the planet - CNN.com

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Costing the Earth: Investing in protecting the planet

(CNN) -- Coral reefs around the world are worth a staggering $172 billion dollars a year to the global economy. But the wealth of the oceans' reefs, and their amazing monetary value, is on the verge of being destroyed.

Previous estimates had suggested reefs might be worth $30 billion based on their draw for tourists, the shelter they provide fish and the protection they offer coastal communities from storm surges.

But new research released last month shows this to be a huge underestimate, suggesting a single hectare could be worth anything from $130,000 to $1.2 million a year.

Ecological economist Pavan Sukhdev, the head of the Cambridge University-based group The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) presented the startling new figures at the Diversitas conference in South Africa.

But it isn't just coral reefs he believes we need to urgently revalue. The research also showed that halving the rate of deforestation worldwide would have an estimated net value of $3.7 trillion for the global economy, and allow the continued absorbtion of 4.8 gigatonnes of carbon per year.

However, this natural capital is under direct threat, and the combined pressures of climate change, ocean acidification, urbanization, pollution and logging are pushing the natural world to the brink.

We should not only be recognizing ecosystems as high-capital assets, we should be paying someone to look after them

"These ecosystems are on the point of collapse," said Sukhdev at the conference in South Africa. "Unless we can get the right deal at the [UN Climate Talks in December] in Copenhagen, things look very bleak.

"We need to recognize the true value of these resources as sources of clean water, as warehouses of biodiversity , as locations where over a billion people earn their ...

Original URL

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/01/value.nature.conservation/

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/01/value.nature.conservation/