anže japelj: forest's ecosystem services: their economic value and the pitfalls that may...
TRANSCRIPT
IFSA Winter Meeting 2015
09/03/2015, Ljubljana
Anže JAPELJ | Slovenian Forestry Institute
CONTENTS OF THE PRESENTATION
1. The origins of the concept of ecosystem services
2. Where is the value of ecosystem services derived from
3. Economic valuation of ecosystem services
4. Payments for forest ecosystem services
5. Pitfalls of assigning values to ecosystem services
FROM NATURE‘S BENEFITS TO …
SHELTER AND RESOURCES
DOMESTICATION OF NATURE (10,000 y ago)
Plato (400 BC)
Pliny andElder(1.c. AC)
Man andNature (1864)
…MODERN HISTORY OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• 1970-1980s | origins and early development
– Silent spring by Carson (1962)
– „functions of nature“ as framing ecological concerns in economic terms to
stress societal dependence on natural resources
– „natural capital“ by Schumacher (1973)
– „ecosystem services“ by Westman (1977)
– concept of ES firstly defined by Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981)
MODERN HISTORY OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• 1990s | the way in the international policy arena
– Beijer Institute‘s Biodiversity program (1992)
– The value of world‘s ecosystem services and natural capital (Costanza et al. 1997)
– Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005)
– Stern review (2006)
– Postdam initiative and The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity (TEEB)
– Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem services (IPBES)
DEFINITION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
„Ecosystem services are the
benefits people obtain from
ecosystems.“*Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
MODERN HISTORY OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• 1990s and 2000s | implementation of market tools
– monetary valuation of ecosystem services
• utility and value
• techniques of economic valuation of ecosystem services
– Markets for ecosystem services / Payments for ecosystem services
• values and property rights
VALUE OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• Nature‘s use values within classical economic theory
– use value derived from utility for production of other (tangible) goods
– Physical analysis
• Exchange values in neoclassical economics
– Marginalist revolution and exchange values
– Focusing on goods and services that had been valued in monetary terms
• Monetary valuation techniques and environmental economics (vs ecological)
– Intensive development from 1960
– Total economic value: use and non-use values
VALUE OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Typology of Total economic value
*Bateman et al. 2003
METHODS FOR ECONOMIC VALUATION
Market based Basis of approach Main techniques
Market based Production approachMarket price methodProduction function analysisCost based techniques
Surrogate market Revealed preferenceTravel cost methodHedonic pricing
Simulated market Stated preferenceContingent valuationChoice modelling
Benefit transferUnit value transferFunction transfer
*Kumar and Kumar 2008
COMMONS AND PUBLIC GOODS
Rivalness and excludability define the character of economic goods and services
*Fisher et al. 2009
PAYMENTS FOR FOREST ES (PES)
„PES is a contractual transaction between a buyer and a seller of an
ecosystem services, or a land use/management practice likely to
secure that service.“ (UNECE 2007)
78 active and 13 developing (2011)
PES may help to maintain or enhance forest ecosystem services where
markets and incentive mechanisms are lacking
– paying to maintain or enhance the ecosystem services
– paying to rescue those services at risk
PAYMENTS FOR FOREST ES (PES)
PAYMENTS FOR FOREST ES (PES)
Four main types of financial arrangements:
• publicly-funded schemes at the local, national and sub-regional l.
• private self organized deals
• mixed (public-private schemes)
• trading schemes
PITFALLS OF ECONOMIC VALUATION
ASSUMPTIONS OF ES
VALUATION
CENTRALITY OF MARKET
SUBSTITUTABILITY AND
RESOURCE FUNGIBILITY
TECHNOLOGICAL
OPTIMISM
UTILITARIAN FRAMEWORK
Assumptions of valuation and
questioning their validity
– Human rationality
– Markets
– homo economicus and
commodification of ES
