Valuing Nature

Valuing Nature, a new network to help decision-makers put learning from the national ecosystem assessment into practice.

If society is to take account of the National Ecosystem Assessment, work needs to continue to embed the learning and thinking about the natural world into everyday decisions. Decisions such as where to site new towns, or whether to use land for crops or timber are just a couple of examples of where options might be affected by a better understanding of nature’s value. It will be the work of the new Valuing Nature Network, sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council and accredited by Living With Environmental Change, to help develop the capacity of decision-makers to assess nature’s value in different ways.
 

“We aim to bring decision-makers in government and business together with researchers from a range of natural sciences, as well as economists and social scientists,” says Professor Ian Bateman, Principal Investigator.

“We will then help them collaboratively tackle issues central to incorporating nature’s value into decision-making processes – hopefully leading to a major change in the way decisions are made at all levels of government and across the business landscape.”

The Network recognises that this is a big challenge. The economic value of some environment-related goods (e.g. timber) might be relatively easy to assess, but determining value in other contexts is much more problematic – and may even raise philosophical questions (e.g. can we value the continued existence of a species?). Scientists from different disciplines and decision-makers operating in different fields also have different priorities, perceptions and, in some cases, terminologies when considering the value of natural resources.  

Once a cross-disciplinary community has been developed, the Network will initiate targeted projects focusing on specific issues – particularly the development of meaningful, integrated, monetary and non-monetary valuation methods.

According to Professor Steve Albon, Network Administrator, “Our work could help change the basis on which our society deals with the natural world.”