The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, Feb 2021. By Partha Dasgupta. London, HM Treasury. ISBN: 978-1-911 1580-29-1. Available as a download, and as condensed editions which highlight key points and conclusions, for this is a large book of 606pp, backed by the Government.
The author is Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta who is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge. The introduction is by Sir Davd Attenborough, also of Cambridge, who is always upbeat in saying ‘we can help save the natural world at what may be the last minute – and in doing so, save ourselves.’
It is unusual, but hardly surprising, that this book on biodiversity is written by someone who is not an ecologist, conservationist or biologist, but with this subject it had to be written by someone steeped in economics. It certainly does not feel like it is written by an ecologist at all for it is as if it is written by an accountant with spreadsheets for everything in nature – giving it a completely different way of looking at everything. An ecologist would look at a lake and think of dragonflies and food webs, Dasgupta looks at a lake or a forest and has his equations out with profit and loss accounts, and can predict the demise of the wildlife assets and effects on man. Scary. Few have done this. Accountants formulae of the natural world are simple. A forest is x large, contains x number of species, so if a quarter of the species go extinct over time, then a formula is calculated for the forest and its species demise over time. No ecologist thinks like this, so it is a true revelation. Depressing quantums.
I was wondered if there were any criticisms or alternative views, and wondered about inclusion of the Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg’s thoughts. There are bound to be fewer ‘biodiversity economic experts’ than ‘ecologists concerned with economics’, and a check to see if the Lomborg (cf. The Skeptical Environmentalist 2013) was mentioned, and yes, two references. So big tick.
Dasgupta is good on quotes ‘Biodiversity means the diversity of life.’ He muses that biodiversity reflects the inputs of a factory , and that ‘biodiversity plays the same role in natural capital as diversity does in financial portfolios.’ There is a theme throughout the book that he is always looking at the world through our eyes, unblinkered / unphased by the anthropogenic effects, and showing, i.e. calculating, how this huge declining nature mess has been allowed to happen and how well-being and way of life is now fostered across the globe by countries seeking to redress some of nature’s inbalance. i.e. ‘repairing our relationship with nature’. As he says ‘ we mostly adopt an anthropocentric viewpoint’– the value of biodiversity is studied in terms of its contributions to humanity, that is human well-being. Surely, it will be insisted, biodiversity has an intrinsic value, beyond what we humans impute to it.’ That’s good to know.
On natural assets that ecologists might call woods, or heathlands or wetlands, he would call them natural capital. ‘It is tempting to call all assets capital goods.’ He goes on to call public knowledge, mutual trust and solidarity, culture and even religion natural capital.
He places our world in the centre of the world’s biomes. He likes facts and figures, his evidence. He says that rainforest cover less than 2% of the planet’s surface but supports more than 50% of Earth’s plants and animals. Matter of factually he says, ‘Human induced habitat destruction is today the leading cause of species extinction. A quarter of all tropical forests have been cut since the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) was ratified 27 years ago. I don’t think he needed an equation for that fact. He backs up all his statement with references. When I was lecturing on rainforests 30 years ago I was saying that acres of rainforest were lost during the lecture…nothing seems to have changed. If there is a message from this book, is that this economic statistician has proved that that we are all correct, the Anthropocene is here, and likely to get worse.
The ecology of the oceans are dealt with by Dasgupta as a source of ‘cultural services’, an essential part of the biosphere. He cites research that says that US$43 trillion of goods and services will be produced from the oceans by man every year, to add on top of the injury and loss of this ecosystem already sustained.
Climate change could overtake land-use change as the cause of biodiversity loss by 2070, he quotes. Huge implications for climate change will occur with the loss of biodiversity as so much carbon is locked up in animals and plants. He says (citing sources) that the Amazon contains ‘an amount of carbon equivalent to a decade of global human emissions.’
There is much to read in this tome, all gleaned from a multitude of sources which Dasgupta has brought together in one place. He must be congratulated in bringing all this together for there are no ecologists around who would dare to try, or would have the background to try, let alone try to unravel and understand the ramifications of this Anthropocene that mankind has got itself into. Ecologists have an eye for wildlife, Dasgupta has the brain of an economist to see clearly through its opacity and account for future gloom! We should all wake up. Most don’t.