Economics of biodiversity

The French Centre d'Analyse Stratégique published a very pedagogical and understandable report of biodiversity recommendations on May 2009. The cautious report answered to four questions, asked by the end of the "Grenelle Environment Round Table":

- Establish a state of the art study of scientific knowledge on the valuation of ecosystems services and biodiversity.
- Analyze the socioeconomic stakes
- Determine the future research specifications
- Establish the first reference values to take into account biodiversity in socioeconomic studies on infrastructure projects.

After a study of socioeconomics stakes, and an analysis of the current ecosystems comprehension, emphasis was made on a critical state of art of environmental economics. References values, which have the dimension of a price, but rather merely are indicators, have been build, and yield a 970€/ha.yr for the French forests, and of 600 for meadows.

The 378 pages paper is interesting in the sense that it develops the juridical aspect of biodiversity, as seen by the national powers, and discusses of the legal status of biodiversity, mentioning that it may become "merit goods". It also recognizes technical issues, from the biophysical standpoint – the need of a robust model to link biodiversity and ecosystems services --, and socioeconomics point of view – the lack of clear milestones for the European 2010 objective, and the need to develop socioecosystems understanding.

However, it also mentions current difficulties, such as the lack of more comprehensive studies, and between the lines is still the problem of absence of an ecological equivalence system.

Source : http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/article.php3?id_article=980