Dr. N. Munal Meitei,
Environmentalist, email- nmunall@yahoo.in
Earth is the source of value and therefore value-able, able to produce value. The role that the natural environment plays and its ecosystem services are often undervalued because either they are unseen or there is no tradable value placed on them. Our atmosphere, water, forests, rivers, oceans and soils continue to provide us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink and the raw materials for medicines, industry and buildings, as well as spaces for recreation. We also rely on them for numerous other goods and services for our health, happiness and prosperity.
Nature is essential for human life. Our crops rely on insect pollination and the complex biological processes that create soil. Enjoying parks, landscapes and wildlife improves our health and well-being.
Nature is the most beautiful and attractive ecosystem around us which make us happy and provide us the natural environment to live healthy. Our nature provides us variety of beautiful flowers, attractive birds, animals, green plants, blue sky, land, running rivers, sea, forests, air, mountains, valleys, hills and many more things. God has created such a beautiful nature for the healthy living all of us. All the things we use for our live are the assets of nature which we should not spoil and damage.
Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes you feel better emotionally, it contributes to your physical wellbeing, reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension and the production of stress hormones ultimately improving our health.
It underpins our economy, our society, indeed our very existence. Nature consists of everything that we can see and feel. It is a home to different kinds of living and non-living beings. It maintains an ecological system to make everyone live in harmony. Nature holds a balance between diverse ecosystems for smooth functioning.
Many people do not acknowledge these intrinsic values of nature. We feel that the perspective of human value is more important than valuing ecosystems and we encourage a form of environmental pragmatism that reflects pluralism in how nature is valued.
Solving the environmental problems that threaten the biosphere is going to require truly new ways of thinking; these will need to include new economic models, broader philosophical and scientific thinking and Eco-centric ways of teaching and learning. In terms of life, biosphere is the only end-in-itself. There has been a long standing argument that ecosystems have intrinsic value and therefore there is no need to put a price tag on Mother Nature.
Some ecosystem services are more tangible and relatively easy to quantify, such as crops, fisheries and timber; other services like the value of air, water, forests, rivers, soils and pollination etc. are only understood but not visible services.
But the value of nature goes beyond the direct services it provides to us. Nature has cultural value too, forming the backdrop to our existence as humans and providing the conditions necessary for good physical and mental health, as well as for emotional and spiritual well-being.
Acknowledging nature’s use value, we sound very egocentric, focusing exclusively on the benefits to us as human beings in here and now. Natural value has in its own right where human is involve as a custodian, with an ethical responsibility towards nature itself, our society and the future generations.
We tend to take nature for granted, seeing it as a ‘free’ resource from which we can take everything. As counter-intuitive to put a monetary value on nature, measurement and accounting is one way to appreciate the direct and indirect benefits we derive from nature. The best approach is to protect nature in the first place than to restore because protection is cheaper than restoration.
As we aware the finite nature of our resources and the increasing demands, we must find ways to live within the capacity of our earth. Due to technological advances and population growth, we have become the dominance of food chain and nature’s resources for future wellbeing.
Our natural world is an incredible wonder that inspires us all. Ten areas of values associated with nature are; economic value, life support value, recreational value, scientific value, aesthetic value, life value, diversity and unity values, stability and spontaneity values, dialectical value and sacramental value.
Forest is disguise of Mother Nature. Globally, the value of ecosystem services equates to approximately 4.5 times the value of Gross World Product (GWP). In particular, countries with tropical forests were estimated to have Total Economic Values of US$ 5264/ha/yr. The Total Economy Value estimates in specific locations vary depending on the level of biodiversity.
These natural assets are often called the world’s ‘natural capital’. These benefits are also hugely important to the economy – from farming and forestry to leisure and tourism. If we add them all up, the total value of these benefits is phenomenal – at least US$125 trillion every year.
Because nature is free, we all over-exploit it. We clear forests, over-fish oceans, pollute rivers and build over wetlands without taking account of the future impacts. All living organisms have a good of their own. The loss of a species from the planet is an irreparable lost.
The qualification, quantification and both monetary and non-monetary valuation of ecosystem services are essential for ensuring sustainable governance of the built and natural environments that support human life. The ecosystem services framework has great potential to serve as a bridge between science and policy in the context of development planning and environmental governance.
Moreover, valuing ecosystem services helps in the decision-making; for example, guiding land-use planning, efficient budgets for maintaining forestry restoration, creating renewable energy projects, reviving endangered species, as well as ensuring the protection and conservation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Ecosystem accounting can provide information for tracking the changes in ecosystem and linking those changes to economic and other human activities.
We should not disturb the originality of the nature and should not act to imbalance the ecosystem cycle. Our nature provides us beautiful environment to live and enjoy; so it’s our responsibility to keep it clean and away from damages.
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