Interim Report - TEEB

value of the watershed protection provided by intact coastal
ecosystems, such as mangroves and other wetlands, has
been estimated at US$ 845 per hectare per year in Malaysia
and US$ 1,022 per hectare per year in Hawaii, United States
of America. Overall, the values of the multiple watershed
services tend to range from US$ 200 to 1,000 per hectare
per year (Mullan and Kontoleon 2008). The value of bee
pollination for coffee production has been estimated at US$
361 per hectare per year (Ricketts et al. 2004), although the
benefits only accrued to producers within 1 kilometre of
natural forests. Many of the studies evaluating regulating
services, for example for coastal protection or regulation of
the water cycle, use production function approaches. These
approaches are being increasingly refined, allowing better
assessment of trade-offs between competing uses of
ecosystems (see, for example, Barbier et al. 2008).
While there is increasing evidence of the value of some
regulating services, many others, such as health regulation,
have been little explored so far, although there are some
indications that they might be significant (Pattanayak and
Wendland 2007).
The economic importance of the contribution of aggregated
biodiversity to ecosystem resilience (the capacity of an
ecosystem to absorb shocks and stresses in constructive
ways) is probably very high but still poorly quantified, although
studies have analysed aspects such as the contribution of
crop diversity to agricultural yields and farm income (e.g. Di
Falco and Perrings 2005, Birol et al. 2005). This important
gap in knowledge reflects the difficulty of first quantifying the
risks of a system collapse from an ecological perspective,
and then measuring people’s willingness to pay to reduce
those risks which are not yet well understood.
The real costs of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems
also include option values. Although they are difficult to
measure, these values placed on conserving resources for
possible uses in the future are significant because our
knowledge of the importance of ecosystem services is
expected to improve over time, and because part of the
losses of biodiversity and the services it underpins are
irreversible. A preferred methodology for measuring option
values (in particular, bio-prospecting values) has been
prepared as part of the preparatory work in Phase I
(Gundimeda 2008). In Phase II, we propose to build on
this approach.
THE COSTS OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
Losing biodiversity and ecosystem services might cause
tremendous costs for society due to the subsequent loss of
Table 3.4: Results from studies on the costs of conservation
Source Object Assessed costs Estimates
Frazee et al. 2003 Conserving the Cape Floristic OC + MC One-off US$ 522 million and
Region (South Africa)
annual expenses of
US$ 24.4 million
Chomitz et al. 2005 Network of protected OC OC 10.000 ha
ecosystems (Bahia, Brazil)
Wilson et al. 2005 Preservation of tropical OC Sumatra: US$ 0.95/ha/year
forest (certain regions)
Borneo: US$ 1.10/ha/year
Sulawesi: US$ 0.76/ha/year
Java/Bali: US$ 7.82/ha/year
Malaysia: US$ 27.46/ha/year
Ninan et al. 2007 Non-timber forest product OC Net present value of
benefits (Nagarhole National
US$ 28.23 per household
Park, India)
annually
Sinden 2004 Biodiversity protection OC US$ 148.5 million
(Brigalow Belt, New South
Wales)
European Commission Biodiversity protection within MC + TC EUR 6.1 billion annually over
2004 the Natura 2000 network a 10-year period
(covering 18% of
EU25-territory)
Bruner et al. 2004 Expanding forest conservation OC + MC US$ 5.75/ha/year for
to all priority areas (worldwide)
10 years
OC = opportunity costs TC = transaction costs MC = management costs
Towards a valuation framework
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