The wealth of nature is essential to the wealth of nations. All aspects of the global economy, from raw materials to manufacturing to trade and commerce depend on biodiversity and ecosystems. Biodiversity and ecosystems supply our economies with indispensable goods and services, such as water, food, fuel, building materials and medicines. Our societies have benefited tremendously through the individual and collective management of these natural resources. They provide the basis for economic development and improvements in human well being.
‘Market’ is an umbrella term for a means to make individual and collective decisions when tradeoffs are required. Many, but certainly not all, of the world’s resource management decisions are made in a market environment. Individuals, families, associations, companies, communities and countries can engage in market-like exchanges. When markets reflect fully the social benefits and costs of the exchange, resource management should be efficient. However, when markets and economic policies fail to adequately capture the values of biodiversity, many costs and opportunities for benefiting from nature are missed and resources are wasted. ‘Getting the prices right’ is an essential step toward better measurement and better management of the world’s scarce resources.
IUCN Economics aims to help people capture the economic opportunities provided by biodiversity. Traditionally, environmental economics works to estimate the costs, or footprint, of economic activities and then to design policies to reduce the footprint caused by incomplete or misleading market incentives. Increasingly, environmental economic arguments in favour of conservation consist of identifying opportunities and guiding incentives such that pro-biodiversity behaviour is economically attractive. By increasing our knowledge of the economic value of ecosystems and ensuring that this information is appropriately guiding related policy processes, IUCN is well placed to solidly anchor nature at the heart of a greening global economy.
