Ecosystem services is another way to look at this debate ...
How do you put an economic value on ;
Fresh clean air
100% pure water
Natural flood protection from wetland systems
Natural filtration from wetland systems
Natural flood protection from forested slopes
Natural erosion protection from forested slopes
Natural carbon rich sinks and storage in all of the above
Rich endemic bio-diversity from forest systems including invertebrates, reptiles, birds etc
Coastal protection from healthy, functioning dune systems
Coastal bio-diversity etc
The intrinsic benefits of these wild places etc
All these functions are contained in their purest forms in our National Parks. If we allow government erosion of our National Parks via mining proposals (no-one undertakes these mining investigations in an area unless they have done initial surveys to determine an area is likely to be mineral rich), we allow the steady erosion of the ecosystem services that keep our part of the planet a healthy and functioning place to live.
Interestingly, in 2006, the Department of Conservation celebrated the ecosystem services of our National Parks and conservation lands. So what has changed ? Here's some excerpts from that report or go to the DOC website for the full links. It's the Report on “The Value of Conservation” 2006 - a summary of reports on the economic impacts of public conservation lands in New Zealand. Here's a quote from that report;
"Failure to appreciate non-market values such as ecosystem services carries a risk of deterioration of natural capital in New Zealand, with consequences including increased flood risk, reduced whitebait catches, impoverished tourism experience, and damage to our clean, green image.
The first steps in preventing further decline in ecosystems (and the services they provide) are to recognise that they have economic values, and to attempt to measure at least some of them. Armed with this information, the Department hopes to make better-informed conservation decisions, and increase public awareness of what is at stake in our national parks and, generally, on public conservation land.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the soils that sustain our pastures, forestry, orchards and crops are examples of environmental goods that benefit humans. Without them, life on Earth would be impossible."
There is DOC in 2006, defending the economic and intrinsic values inherent within our National Parks that THIS Government is now chipping away at to provide overseas owned mining companies with huge profits at our expense. Not just at the expense of our tourism industry (a massive $21 billion), but ultimately at the expense of all our primary industries that rely on these basic ecosystem services provided by our high value, high bio-diversity conservation lands.
Where is the economic and environmental balance in this scenario ?
