'Commodification' is a very bad word to frame the debate about natural capital
“I think part of the problem is that the word commodification frames it in a very, very narrow way. There are many goods in capitalist’s societies. Commodities are only one part, others are public goods. I think we've got to recognize we are here trying to price the priceless but if putting an economic value on natural capital help us to view it and value it in different ways for certain audiences, then I think that we'd be wrong not to try it. But commodification I think is a very bad word to frame the debate about natural capital.” (Kevin Morgan)
Do not pay for something that should not be done
“I appreciate that we have talked about contracts with companies and nature conservation groups. We have done that as well. But I am principally against this system of paying for something that shouldn't be done. For instance in Lower Saxony, we have the water payment and that was paid basically by everyone who buys water to give then money to the farmers not to apply pesticides in the area where you have drinking water sources. To allow that is like giving thieves money not to pickpocket.” (Monika Griefahn)
Payments for ecosystem services
“I would say that I work on my own kind of narrow definition of payments for ecosystem services. Because if you go by the definition we had of ecosystem services this morning virtually anything is a payment. If I buy an apple in the shop that is a payment for ecosystem service, but it is pretty uninteresting. And subsidy payments from the government well they are quite uninteresting (…). To me the ones that are interesting the way you identify a benefit that hasn't been recognized before and that in itself creates an incentive to the supply and the demand to meet each other without an ongoing push from a third agency.” (Paul Morling)
The Discussion
© 2024 Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V.
Online: http://pes-conference.civiland-zalf.org/following-the-discussion/ecosystem-services/index.php
Datum: 21.12.2024
Rethink economy
“…and it seems to me that if we take the ecosystem service approach, which is moving perhaps away from site-based conservation to looking at the services that ecosystems in a wider sense provide, then we need to think of the role of economic actors in the environment and think of new economic models which value economic assets and natural capital in the way that it is beginning to happen in some of the big companies. I think there isn't enough of it and I think we need to be more radical and more challenging about the way we do this.” (Morgan Parry)