Chapter 3 Measuring biophysical quantities and the use of ... - TEEB

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The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: The Ecological and Economic Foundationsmeasuresincomecultural value, although tourism can often beglobally. At subscales,althoughSpiritual valuesAesthetic valueslinked to habitat and species diversity. Morerecently been suggested as indicative of thevalue of biodiversity and ecosystemsglobal levels somemeasures intuitivee.g. tourismtourism identifiedas possible globalindicator forTo ecosystem services: Direct measures ofecosystem service levels and changes.To valuation: Most cultural services arepoorly understood and often difficult to value. Tourism and recreation services, as well asexistence value more amenable to valuation.Some debate over the economic valuation ofspiritual and religious values. See Chapter 5numbers orrecreational values.Other measurespoorly understood.No consensus onmeasurement andmodelling. Notsensitive to changedevelopmentfor progress in valuing.18
An examination of Table 1 shows that there are a large number of measures and indicatorsavailable across geographic scales and regions for assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services.As in previous reviews of measures and indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem services (RoyalSociety 2003; Mace and Baillie 2007; Layke 2009), much of the existing data and indicators werecollected and developed for purposes other than the one TEEB is interested in and are thereforenot necessarily the right measures for assessing the economic consequences of biodiversity andecosystem change. Furthermore most of the existing indicators are developed and applied withinspecific contexts resulting in some good biodiversity indicators and some progress in thedevelopment of ecosystem service indicators, but the current lack of measures and indicatorswhich span contexts and show clear relationships between components of biodiversity and theservices or benefits they provide to people is a key gap, making existing measures and indicatorsless relevant to the audience and aims of TEEB. The categories of indicators presented in Table 1are reviewed below with two objectives: 1) to identify existing measures useful for economicvaluation in the short term; and 2) to highlight the work still required to develop key fit-forpurposeindicators in the longer term.2.1 Indicators of diversityAt a global level, measures and maps of species diversity, endemism and richness are availablefor some taxa e.g. mammals and amphibians (Myers et al. 2000; MA 2005a), while at sub-globalscales these are supplemented by measures and indicators of genetic and ecosystem diversity (e.g.Bagley et al 2002). Although these indicators are the focus of many conservation agencies andpolicies and good at conveying their message of high biodiversity value, these measures areseldom used to assess the benefits provided by the diversity of genes, species, and ecosystems topeople and economies. This is probably a result of the complex and tenuous relationships betweendiversity and ecosystem services (Balvanera et al. 2001; Hooper et al. 2005; Mace et al. 2005).While some evidence exists that diversity is important in resilience and adaptive capacity ofbiodiversity and ecosystems (Johnson et al 1996; Naeem 1998; Swift et al. 2004; Balvanera et al.2006; Diaz et al. 2006), this ―insurance value‖ is seldom calculated (see chapter 2 for a detailedexplanation). A frequently cited example of the importance of diversity is the value of geneticdiversity in agriculture and bio-prospecting (Esquinas-Alcázar 2005); however, these benefits arecomplex given their option-based nature and are therefore hard to quantify and value. Otherbenefits of diversity include cultural services associated with enjoyment and appreciation ofdiversity which may be more amenable to valuation, using for example willingness to payapproaches (e.g. Esquinas-Alcázar 2005), but the reliability of these approaches has not been19
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