POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
210
4. ECONOMIC VALUATION OF POLLINATOR GAINS
AND LOSSES
INTRODUCTION AND
OUTLINE
Pollinators are a key component of global biodiversity,
providing vital ecosystem services to crops and wild plants
(Klein et al., 2007; Potts et al., 2010; for more details, see
Chapters 2 and 3). However, there is evidence of recent
decline in both wild and managed pollinators and parallel
decline in the plants that rely upon them (Potts et al., 2010;
Biesmeijer et al., 2006). Declining pollinators can result in
the loss of pollination services, which can have important
negative ecological and economic impact that could
significantly affect the maintenance of wild plant diversity,
wider ecosystem stability, crop production, food security
and human welfare (Potts et al., 2010).
The importance of animal pollinators in the functioning of
most terrestrial ecosystems has been extensively described
and analysed in a broad range of scientific literature (see
Chapter 3). The importance of pollinators and pollination
services can often be evaluated in economic terms in order
to link decisions made with economic consequences (Daily
et al., 1997; Daily et al., 2000). The economic assessment
of pollinators and pollination services is measured by their
total economic value (TEV; summarized in Figure 4.1).
Economically, the total value of an ecosystem service is
the sum of the utilitarian reasons a society has to maintain
it. This is typically divided into (i) use values, the values of
the benefits that people gain from the functioning of the
ecosystem (e.g., the pollination of crops); and (ii) non-use
values, the values that people attribute to the existence of
an ecosystem service, regardless of its actual use (existence
value, e.g., the existence of pollinators) or the value they
place on the potential to use the ecosystem service in the
future (bequest value e.g., species that could pollinate
crops in the future). Pollinators and pollination have a use
value because the final product of their service can be
used directly by humans, such as with crops or honey (a
consumptive use), as well as the leisure and aesthetics
created by the presence of pollinated wild plants within the
landscape (a non-consumptive use value). Pollination can
also provide indirect use values through supporting the
reproduction and genetic diversity of wild and cultivated
plants that benefit humans. Finally, the use value of
pollinators and pollination also contains an option value
(the value given to preserve a choice option of pollinators
and pollination-dependent products in the future) and the
insurance value (the capacity of pollinator communities to
reduce the current and future risks associated with using
pollination services; Baumgärtner and Strunz, 2014).
However, not all these values are directly related to
markets (only the consumptive uses that are marketed).
Consequently, the impacts of management on pollination
services could be under-estimated when making decisions,
potentially resulting in inefficient or unsustainable use of
resources. Economic valuation provides two forms of
essential information to stakeholders. Firstly, it highlights
the economic contribution of pollinators to the various
benefits provided to the agricultural sector and society.
Thus, it tells the decision maker how much net benefit arises
from different interventions, which in turn allows for the
optimal design of such interventions. Secondly, economic
valuation can assess the impact of variations in pollinator
population on the economic welfare of different groups of
people, such as farmers or consumers. By considering
this information, decision makers, from both the public and
private sectors, are able to make better-informed decisions
about the impacts of proposed investments, public
spending or management changes. This chapter aims to
review the conceptual framework and the various methods
of economic valuation of pollinators and the effective use
of these valuations. There are also other value systems,
including spiritual, cultural and indigenous and local
knowledge values, which can inform decision-making, these
are reviewed in Chapter 5.
In this chapter, pollination services are considered an
ecosystem service, i.e., “the conditions and processes
through which natural ecosystems, and the species that
make them up, sustain and fulfil human life” (Daily, 1997).
The evidence is clear for wild pollinators that are provided by
natural ecosystem as forests or soils, but some ambiguity
remains when considering managed pollinators as they can
be considered as livestock, far from nature. However, they
are used to provide services in agricultural systems that,
while heavily managed, remain a functioning ecosystem
(or agro-ecosystem, see Swinton et al., 2006; Swinton et
al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2007). Thus described, pollination
services from managed pollinators are ecosystem services
offered by the agro-ecosystem. Unlike many well-quantified
ecosystem services, pollination services are provided by
mobile organisms that can move in uneven patterns across
their foraging range, making them more difficult to assess
accurately (Kremen et al., 2007). Furthermore, pollination
services are an intermediate service, a service that is not
beneficial in itself but instead underpins other benefits,
such as crop production and landscape aesthetics, by
helping produce pollinator-dependent crops for human
food and nutrition security, along with the reproduction of
certain plants (Fisher et al., 2009; Mace et al., 2012). The
value of intermediate services is assessed not by looking at
their direct consequence (pollination) but by their impacts
on the final goods that are produced (food, honey, etc.).
These final goods have a market price which gives some
reasonable indication of their use value (note that prices
may under-estimate values). However, pollinators are also
final ecosystem services in themselves because of the value
associated with their existence. Although this complicates
the challenge of accurately valuing pollination services
more substantial, these abstract benefits can still be valued