wise use of mires and peatlands - Peatland Ecology Research Group

108 VALUES AND CONFLICTS: WHERE DIFFERENT VALUES MEETimportance to future generations due toadvances in problem-solving capacities.Often, these will be problems that can behandled by “money” and investment (see§4.8).Uncertainty and risks: Any considerationregarding the future involves uncertainty.The question “what decision to take?” is,however, not only a matter of assessingprobabilities but also an ethical question 70 .Imposing risks on others, even future others,has as a direct consequence that they areexposed to a potential danger, i.e. a directchange for the worse 71 . A good reason isrequired to permit the creation of situationswhich involve risks to others, and to discountthese risks in order to increase our own netpresent value.The simplest way to avoid risks would be notto interfere at all. But in practice we prefer totake a small chance of a great disaster in returnfor the high probability of a modest benefit 72 :e.g. we fly in order to save some time. If anact involves a risk of negative consequencesthis is a reason to avoid it. If theconsequences are extremely negative, evena small risk of producing them is a reason toavoid the act and to accept some costs indoing so.Vital functions of mires and peatlands: Vitalfunctions are resources and services that areessential to human life and reproduction, andthat are prudently expected to be nonsubstitutablewithin any reasonable humantimeframe 73 .Essential functions relate to● the physical needs of survival (food, water,shelter, clothing, basic health care)● the liberty to pursue permissible wants, and● the autonomy to live according one’s ownmoral position (see Table 4/1).With respect to mires and peatlands such vitalissues may include:the maintenance of general problemsolvingcapacities (cf. conservation ofglobal biodiversity for maintainingproduction, regulation, existence,indication, and cognition options, seeTable 3/22) 74 ,global climate regulation (cf. UNFramework Convention on ClimateChange) especially with respect to carbonstorage (see §3.4.3),the maintenance of food productioncapacity (e.g. preventing soil erosion),the availability of drinking water (relatedto climate change, large-scale drainage, andpollution),the availability of habitable land (e.g.preventing climate change and theassociated sea level rise),health conditions (e.g. preventing damageto the ozone layer and spread of diseasesresulting from climate change),all developments that severely affectpeoples’ value systems (e.g. preventingdecrease in biodiversity).●●●●●●●4.8 THE MONETARISATION 75 OFPEATLAND VALUESMaking wise decisions depends onadequately valuing all the aspects involved.The easiest way to resolve conflicts wouldbe to set out what one party gains againstwhat the other loses. As there are many typesof values (cf. Chapter 3), such balancingwould require a single and one-dimensionalmeasure by which all values could be equallyexpressed. The measure most used in normallife is the “market price”, the amount of moneyone has to pay for a product or service. Themarket price makes it possible to compare andexchange such divergent products andassets as sugar, shoes, land, and knowledge.The market does not assign monetary valueto everything 76 . Some experiences andservices have no price as a matter of tradition.We do not pay for a friendly greeting on thestreet (although artificial friendliness is