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Chapter 6. The Value of Nature
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The Value of Nature 167 CHAPTER 6 The Value of Nature T he term “ecosystem services” has been coined to describe goods and services that natural or semi-natural habitats provide to human society. Many of these are essential for human wellbeing and survival — most obviously clean air and water, but also fertile soils, natural fisheries and the carbon stored in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The Millennial Ecosystem Assessment recognizes four distinct types of ecosystem services (Table 6.1). When ecosystem services are missing or significantly degraded, society must pay a cost to restore them or to mitigate the impacts of their absence, or it simply suffers the consequences of the degraded services, whether that be reduced human health and well-being, or lost economic opportunities . For example, water treatment plants can mitigate the impact of water pollution, while chemical fertilizers or extended fallows can restore the productivity of degraded soils; however, severe air pollution is less easy to mitigate and usually leads to respiratory ailments that shorten human life spans. The goods and services that ecosystems provide are a perfect example of a public asset held by the state as an endowment for future generations. Their value is difficult to estimate because they are largely intangible; even though they are real, we may not see them and so usually take them for granted. Because ecosystem services are in the public domain, they are perceived as being free and, in some instances, a basic human right, such as air and water. As the planet has become transformed from a mosaic of largely natural ecosystems to one overwhelmingly dominated by human-mediated ecosystems, the value of nature’s intangible services has become an issue of increasing public importance. While anthropogenic landscapes also provide ecosystem services, they rarely replace all of the benefits provided by natural 167 168 The Cardamom Conundrum habitats, and in some cases, they significantly degrade the natural assets that are the foundation of a sustainable economy. Consequently, economists have begun devising methods to estimate the value of ecosystem services and to find ways to incorporate the cost of maintaining these services into local, national or global economies. This policy concept has been termed “payment for ecosystem services,” and, in its most simple form, requires those who use the natural resource to pay the producers of that resource, whether the resource is clean and reliable water supplies, or the sequestration of CO2 into some sort of long-term carbon sink. Unfortunately, such simple solutions are not very common, so the challenge is to devise methods where subsidies, regulations, and market mechanisms can compensate the guardians of natural ecosystems and ecosystem services that are essential for maintaining a productive landscape, an economically competitive nation or a climatically stable planet. Since ecosystem services are by definition a public good, the role of the state is essential in designing and implementing the compensation systems. Given the rapid and economically-motivated changes that are facing the Cambodian nation, as described in Chapter 5, understanding the true value of Cambodia’s natural resources is key to resolving the Table 6.1. Types of Ecosystem Services identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and examples that pertain to the Greater Cardamom Landscapes in both natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. Category Type Example Provisioning food & fiber timber, fish, crops water irrigation & drinking water natural products medicinal plants & resins energy fuel wood & hydropower Regulating climate regulation carbon sequestration decomposition decay of forest & crop residues biological services pollination predator – prey interactions watershed services flood control & sedimentation Supporting soil formation crop productivity ecosystem structure food webs in aquatic ecosystems primary production timber, fish, crops [3.81.97.37] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:22 GMT) The Value of Nature 169 Cardamom Conundrum. Without this knowledge, truly informed decisions cannot be made and there is the risk that Cambodia, like many developed and developing nations before it, will overlook the true value of nature and compromise the long-term economic value of its forest, fish, wildlife and water resources, in exchange for shortterm economic gains based on traditional development choices. Water and Watershed Management Consider the rivers of the Cardamom Mountains, which are a strategically important national asset for Cambodia. Much emphasis has been placed on their potential for hydropower, with hundreds of millions of dollars of investments planned or underway. However, these highland watersheds also provide drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people living in approximately 3,500 villages and towns in...