Biodiversity crunch

One of the major efforts of researchers in recent years has been to determine the economic value of natural resources in an effort to persuade policymakers that these resources are important in decisions about development. But many species in particular environments are being lost so quickly that their value may be undervalued, according to a new report. And Clive Hambler and colleagues at the University of Oxford estimate that one species in the UK is being lost every two weeks. Policymakers meeting in Nagoya this month for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity hope to map out the future for biological conservation. They are being told of the economic benefits of such measures. One report being presented is from Pavan Sukhdev, a former banker, who places a price tag on the worldwide network of environment assets. A growing number of experts warn that the battle to stall the loss of biodiversity is two decades behind the climate change agenda. The UN and the World Bank and ministers from almost all countries argue that the loss of native species will affect local ecosystems. The hope is that the UN meeting in Nagoya will shift the emphasis from preserving species simply on the basis of conservation issues to one of a hard-headed assessment of the impact on global economic security. The failure to meet targets for species conservation set 20 years ago has been particularly acute in Europe, which has such wealth and expertise to hand. The UK government is now championing a new system to identify the financial value of natural resources and the potential hit to national economies if they are lost. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) project has begun to calculate the global economic costs of biodiversity loss and will be flagged up at Nagoya. The research by Sukhdev will be prominent at the meeting, placing a price on the worldwide network of environmental assets that has triggered an international race to halt the destruction of rainforests, wetlands and coral reefs. The current meeting in Nagoya of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will be crucial for future conservation policies. Nigel Williams reports. Costly: Loss of rainforest and the biological diversity it contains has economic impact according to new studies. (Picture: Photolibrary.)