Dear Maya and ECOLOGGERS, It is truly exciting to hear about your survey initiative. A group of 60 ESA members has been proposing an ESA position on economic growth, and numerous other professional societies have already adopted positions or are considering them. So your initiative is very timely. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> I will provide specific feedback through the channels you have identified. However, I will also provide some general comments here, since this is on ongoing ECOLOG topic. Most of the positions on economic growth that have been taken or considered have been crafted with great care to distinguish between “economic growth” and “development.” Economic growth is known to the public and policy makers as increasing production and consumption of goods and services in the aggregate. It’s become almost synonymous with increasing GDP, a concurrent measure of production, income, and expenditure. “Development” has had a more nebulous usage in academia, public dialog, and policy circles, and has sometimes been conflated with economic growth, greatly complicating macroeconomic reform efforts. More recently, though, “development” has evolved to have qualitative connotations that are largely independent of the quantity of goods and services produced. Even most conventional economists have come to agree that GDP is not a good indicator of development. Ecological economists have worked hard to advance the distinction between economic growth and economic development (as Daly and Farley have done with their bellwether textbook) so that there is clarity in public dialog pertaining to macroeconomic policy goals. And see for example the position taken by the United States Society for Ecological Economics: http://www.ussee.org/PDFs/Position%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Society%20for%20Ecological%20Economics%20on%20Economic%20Growth.pdf Professional natural resources societies have likewise taken care to verify this important distinction. See for example the position taken by the Society for Conservation Biology’s North America Section: http://www.conbio.org/Sections/NAmerica/NAS-SCBPositionOnEconomicGrowth.cfm So my input, both to the tradeoff-survey initiative and to the ESA membership and board, is that this distinction between growth and development is crucial to macroeconomic policy reforms for environmental protection. “Conservation,” in the sense that nature conservation helps to maintain an aspect of the quality of life, could easily be considered an aspect of “development,” and therefore the two goals could be considered mutually reinforcing. But for purposes of public policy, ecologists have described how economic growth is quite antithetical to biodiversity conservation (as an example of “conservation”) based upon the ecological principle of competitive exclusion and the laws of thermodynamics. Also, conclusions pertaining to the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services may be extremely elusive. Because ecosystem services are by definition a function of biodiversity (along with abiotic ecosystem components), then ceteris paribus, more biodiversity would equate to more ecosystem services. Yet those services, in order to actually serve the human economy, require the usage of the biodiversity fund. If too many services are required, i.e. beyond the maximum sustainable rate, then we can expect the use of biodiversity to enter into a phase of liquidation, in which case both biodiversity and ecosystem services will decline. (And of course this has been the case with many natural capital stocks and ecosystem services.) So if we emphasized the first point in this paragraph, we could conclude that there is no trade-off between biodiversity and ecosystem services, but if we emphasized the latter point, we could conclude that there is a trade-off. In any event, this is all intended as constructive feedback, and I greatly appreciate your work on this compelling matter.
Cheers, Brian Brian Czech, Ph.D., President Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy and Natural Resources Program Virginia Polytechnic Institute and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />State University National Capital Region, Northern Virginia Center 7054 Haycock Road, Room 411 Falls Church, Virginia 22043 -- Maya Kapoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Dear Ecologgers, We are developing a survey on attitudes towards tradeoffs in conservation and development, and we would like your help. This is an opportunity to express your opinion about compelling and timely issues. Your participation will allow us to design a survey using actual opinions held by professionals in your field. We are interested in the opinions of anyone who identifies as being professionally involved in conservation or development projects (or both) in any capacity, including through academic research. We would like participation to be as inclusive and representative as possible, and encourage you to forward this email to any other potential participants you know around the world, as well as to relevant listservs. Specifically, we are interested in whether you think tradeoffs exist in relation to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and development. Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems, such as fresh water, disease regulation, and aesthetic value. If you are interested in helping us, please answer the following questions. The first two are necessary for us to be able to use the information you provide, but the other four can be answered to whatever extent you choose. Answers can be in any form, such as lists or paragraphs: 1. What is your profession? · Do you work primarily in conservation, development, or both? 2. How did you hear about this solicitation? · From an individual or a list? If from an email list, which one? 3. What positive or negative relationships exist between biodiversity and ecosystem services? 4. What positive or negative relationships exist between conservation and development? 5. Who benefits from conservation? · What are the social benefits of conservation and where/when do they occur? 6. Who does not benefit from conservation? We would like to know your opinion regarding conservation and development tradeoffs. While this is not a survey, we will incorporate some of the responses that we receive into a survey to be conducted by Advancing Conservation in a Social Context (ACSC, www.tradeoffs.org). ACSC is a research initiative focused on tradeoffs in conservation. At this stage we would like to collect any and all opinions on this topic. If you have an opinion, no matter how unorthodox or obvious you think it is, we would like to read it! Your response will be kept anonymous to all but Maya Kapoor, the research assistant for this project. Your email address will be saved so that we can invite you to participate in the final survey once it has been designed, but your participation now will be helpful whether or not you choose to take the completed survey later. We will also use your email address to send you results from the completed survey. Please email your response to Maya at [EMAIL PROTECTED] by Monday, June 10th, 2008. In addition, feel free to contact Maya if you would like more information about our survey methods and about ACSC generally. Besides email, Maya can be reached at: Arizona State University School of Life Sciences PO Box 4601 Tempe, AZ 85287 Thank you very much for your assistance and participation. Sincerely, ACSC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
