What Price Biodiversity?

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How do we value something that is rarely traded for its true worth, yet sustains life on Earth? Steve Davidson outlines a collaborative beginning.

Putting an economic value on biodiversity is a complex challenge involving both scientific and economic tools. Yet it is clearly a worthwhile task, and a pressing one.

According to Dr Denis Saunders of CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology, some 192 species go extinct in the world every day. That's 70 000 species lost each year.

To the sceptic who argues that extinction is a normal process, Saunders says the above rate of loss is many times greater than the 'background' rate of extinction, that is, without human interference. Extinction rates today are 100 to 1000 times greater than those in the fossil record. Furthermore, the rate of detrimental change -- at the level of genes, species and ecosystems -- is increasing, not slowing.

Aware that biodiversity is a dwindling and often unappreciated resource, a group of scientists led by Dr Brian Walker and Dr Steve Cork, of CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology is developing principles and methods for objectively valuing biodiversity. The ambitious program is being funded by both CSIRO and the Myer Foundation and involves scientists and economists from some six …