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The field of Biodiversity Economics promotes conservation and sustainable development through pragmatic policy-level research that gives environmental change a more immediate, quantifiable, feel. By exploring the financial effects of species depletion and destruction of biomes–in many instances placing a dollar amount on the value of plant and animal species–the discipline makes these issues more concrete for policymakers. The movement is currently working to create an economic indicator similar to the GDP that will include sustainable use of natural resources and maintenance of biodiversity in its assessment of a nation’s economic health.
A website, maintained in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), offers researchers a library exploring a ways of modeling the environment using measures of economic value, issues surrounding economic choice and the preservation of biodiversity, and case studies of companies that expanded their business models to promote sustainability.
This approach turns an old problem on its head. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Engels and generations of commentators who followed saw the commodification of the environment in dire terms, viewing the trend in as a milestone in humanity’s alienation from the natural world and an expression of the worst, most exploitive, aspects of greed. By connecting the environment to economic development in a way that allows policymakers to see more clearly the long-range effects of choices and more objectively the benefits of preservation and conservation, the biodiversity economics movement uses cold equations for positive ends.
. Historian Shae Davidson's research interests include public policy and the relationship between culture and civil society. His publications range from articles on industrial history to absurdist poetry.
