4 Replies to “Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill (@cartoonralph)”
Slugs and snails have immense value… as badger food.
Those goalposts don’t move themselves, y’know.
More seriously, I wish there was some way to uncheck the tick box that states “Have dominion over the fish of the seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over the earth, and over every thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
I guess it depends who “we” are. If “we” valued nature much as a society, would we be where we are now?
A modern sad state of affairs.
I don’t think there is really anything new in the idea that nature is either a resource to be consumed or a worthless obstacle to be pushed out of the way. The difference is just that nowadays the technology we have and the sheer numbers of us mean that we consume/remove it at unprecedented rates.
That presents an enormous challenge to the nature conservation community but – whilst we should not underestimate the scale of the challenge – the positive side of the coin is that there are more people than ever before who recognise there is a problem in that attitude and wish to do something about it.
Economic valuation of nature is not a completely wrong headed idea – the contribution of forests to protecting our water supply or of coastal wetlands to flood defence, say, are good arguments against the destruction of these habitats for short term gain. Likewise, one of the valid arguments that can be raised against the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, for example, is the threat they pose to the pollination of various economically important crops by bees and other insects. The problem is that, as Ralph’s cartoon implies, economic valuation simply cannot capture some aspects of the true worth of nature – the joy of hearing a Nightingale sing for example, and also that a one-eyed economic view, remorselessly applied, can have disastrous consequences for those species and habitats that have no discernible dollar value.
As conservationists therefore we should make economic arguments where they are relevant and appropriate but should strongly assert that the case for conserving biodiversity does not rest on its contribution (positive or negative) to the exchequer but is much wider than that. After all, an economic case could no doubt be mounted in support of slavery but most people have long recognised that it is simply wrong and can never be justified by any amount of financial profit.
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Slugs and snails have immense value… as badger food.
Those goalposts don’t move themselves, y’know.
More seriously, I wish there was some way to uncheck the tick box that states “Have dominion over the fish of the seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over the earth, and over every thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
I guess it depends who “we” are. If “we” valued nature much as a society, would we be where we are now?
A modern sad state of affairs.
I don’t think there is really anything new in the idea that nature is either a resource to be consumed or a worthless obstacle to be pushed out of the way. The difference is just that nowadays the technology we have and the sheer numbers of us mean that we consume/remove it at unprecedented rates.
That presents an enormous challenge to the nature conservation community but – whilst we should not underestimate the scale of the challenge – the positive side of the coin is that there are more people than ever before who recognise there is a problem in that attitude and wish to do something about it.
Economic valuation of nature is not a completely wrong headed idea – the contribution of forests to protecting our water supply or of coastal wetlands to flood defence, say, are good arguments against the destruction of these habitats for short term gain. Likewise, one of the valid arguments that can be raised against the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, for example, is the threat they pose to the pollination of various economically important crops by bees and other insects. The problem is that, as Ralph’s cartoon implies, economic valuation simply cannot capture some aspects of the true worth of nature – the joy of hearing a Nightingale sing for example, and also that a one-eyed economic view, remorselessly applied, can have disastrous consequences for those species and habitats that have no discernible dollar value.
As conservationists therefore we should make economic arguments where they are relevant and appropriate but should strongly assert that the case for conserving biodiversity does not rest on its contribution (positive or negative) to the exchequer but is much wider than that. After all, an economic case could no doubt be mounted in support of slavery but most people have long recognised that it is simply wrong and can never be justified by any amount of financial profit.