Can we protect the rights of nature in a green economy?

If we put prices on all of our ecosystems we may risk moving even further down the wrong development pathway - whereby everything is seen in economic terms.  

Reports of environmental problems or biodiversity loss are not new. Since the 60s, there has been an increasing amount of information about the environmental impacts of conventional development strategies based on economic growth. The present environmental crisis indicates that those alerts have been ignored.

Green Economy, as initiated by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), is one of the most recent ‘new’ approaches to development. UNEP defines the Green Economy as one that results in ’improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities’ (UNEP 2010). The idea is said to be a reaction to several factors, especially to current economic thinking, and promotes the Green Economy as a new economic paradigm towards a new economy  that will be low-carbon, resource efficient and social inclusive, while also protecting biodiversity.

There is a heated controversy around the notion and unanswered questions surrounding a Green Economy approach. As a contribution to these discussions, we would like to focus in a specific role of the green economy: its possibilities and limitations in biodiversity conservation. In particularly we would like to explore these issues in light of the Green Economy approach and present proposals of Nature’s rights in South America.

Green Economy is not so 'green'

Regarding Nature, the main proposition of the Green Economy is that it will significantly reduce environmental risks and impacts by promoting the efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. Many of the specific tools to achieve that goal derive from environmental economics, which considers Nature as fragmented and divided into “natural resources” or environmental “goods” or “services”; Nature is seen as another form of capital: “Natural Capital”. The services that Nature provides may have an economic value and in some cases, may be related to human property rights.

There are several problems with this understanding of Nature; among them, a tendency to confuse economic value with the “real” value of Nature. This is also the central aim of neo-liberal market-based conservation, which relies on the assumption that biodiversity’s non-monetarised values are deemed insufficient to preserve it (Ervine 2011). Furthermore, the Green Economy approach considers that valuing natural capital in economic terms is the way to indicate its importance for sustaining human and economic prosperity (UNEP 2011). Thus, the conservation of Nature will only be ensured if we are able to incorporate it into profitable economic processes, in which Nature becomes another Capital.

Green Economy is heavily dependent on a market-based economic approach. The most cited environmental economic tool is the use of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), which is defined as a voluntary transaction of an ecosystem service (ES) among a buyer and a seller of the ES, which must secure the ES provision. The schemes are presented as new conservation paradigms. However, there is still a lack of good evidence confirming PES effects on conservation and where evidence has been found, the effects are only local. Furthermore, PES contracts are always time limited despite the fact that conservation needs a much longer time-frame. The success of the conservation project depends on the willingness of a buyer to pay again for the ES – turning conservation into a cost-benefit decision.

Beyond prices:  Nature’s intrinsic values

A different approach is possible. It departs from the utilitarian perspective and instead recognizes the multiple values of Nature, including ecological, cultural, religious, aesthetics, etc. After-all, economic value is just one dimension amongst many; and price is only one indicator amongst many.  In our opinion, nature cannot be measured or valued with only one criterion; rather the valuation should be multidimensional. This approach is not new and has been explored by ecological economists as well as environmentalists.

Once we have accepted the need for alternative values, the next step is to understand the intrinsic value of Nature.  Intrinsic value is not human-centric and exists in the absence of humans; for example, the life processes found in tropical forests would continue irrespective of human life. This approach understands that animals and plants have their own right to exist, and that they do not need to be deemed useful or beautiful by humans in order to be granted protection. Recognizing the intrinsic value of Nature will also lead the way for recognizing the formal, legal rights of Nature, which is a critical part of protecting our natural heritage.

The failure of the Green Economy approach to recognize an ethical perspective is a major problem, not only because it fails to protect the intrinsic values which are such a part of Nature conservation, but also because it fails to understand the cultural, policy and politics implications.

From a cultural point-of-view, many non-western knowledge and belief systems recognize the intrinsic values of Nature; particularly indigenous peoples who also live in threatened ecosystems. The absence of the cultural perspective seriously undermines the credibility of the Green Economy as a viable approach. From a political perspective, the movement to recognize the rights of Nature is already underway. Ecuador is the first country to have recognized Nature’s rights in its new constitution, along with the classical human-centered view of the rights for a good quality of life and environmental conservation (see discussion in Gudynas, 2009). These two aspects, the cultural one and the political shifts, are needed and should be included in any initiative for a global change.

Lastly, there is a policy dimension, which is also critical. If we adopt a Nature’s rights approach then, local communities, in particular, or citizens in general, would not need evidence or policies to prove the links between environmental damage and economic performance, or the potential usefulness of a particular species or ecosystem service. On the contrary, species and ecosystems would be conserved on the basis of their intrinsic value.