Nature and the Marketplace: Capturing The Value Of Ecosystem Services

by Geoffrey Heal

In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost. Nature and the Marketplace examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services. Written by an economist with a background in business, it evaluates the real prospects for various of nature's marketable services to “turn profits” at levels that exceed the profits expected from alternative, ecologically destructive, business activities. The

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

so...if you want to know how capitalism can save the environment, this book is a great overview. if you think that that is highly unlikely, here is fuel for your fire! this book showed me how to disagree in "their terms."

[Noah Enelow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, this is a highly readable book that makes some very convincing arguments for cap and trade. While Heal is definitely a market enthusiast (more than I am, for example), he acknowledges the tough political decisions that have to be made in conservation choices. After reading this, I've become more convinced of the potential efficacy of judiciously used market forces in complement to international regulation in promoting conservation efforts.

One big gap in Heal's thinking is his implicit dismissal of traditional plant knowledge in his chapter on biodiversity. To him, Western-style, university or corporate-funded research is the only way to produce "knowledge." He should realize that a lot of this "research" is conducted on the backs of thousands of years of traditional knowledge of the properties of plants - a point Vandana Shiva makes quite well. I'm not saying that everything every traditional healer "knows" about plants is correct. There are bound to be systematic errors in a system as fragmented and un-standardized as traditional medicine. But traditional knowledge goes a long way towards showing pharmaceutical researchers where to look. And literally millions, maybe billions of people, depend on it.

Heal does tip his hat to Shaman Pharmaceuticals for sharing their profits with their informants. But that should be the law, not just best practice. Certification, in the style Fair Trade, would be a good intermediate step between the current state of things and future international legislation.

I'm about 10 pages from the end of this, so it's technically "currently-reading," but basically, I've read it.