Our prevailing relationship with nature is based on framing the living world as a set of natural resources. This utility-based worldview perpetuates the drivers of ongoing biodiversity loss.
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Articles on Natural capital
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Ecosystem deterioration, along with climate change, is now becoming a controversial political question.
Valuing nature is hardly natural.
Water and energy use are becoming more efficient, which is good news for both the economy and the environment. But Australia has yet to realise the value of national environmental accounting.
When we don't factor in the environment in our economic decision making, we aren't getting an acurate picture of what's happening. Australia needs to adopt more environmental economics.
Natural capital is a hot topic that proponents have jumped onto, believing it is the future of sustainable development. But this concept is based on fundamental fallacies.
The world must embrace an economy where people and the planet are what matters the most.
The notions of "natural capital" and "ecosystem services" try to highlight the value of nature. But but by putting dollar figures on nature do we actually devalue it?
Listing the value of bees, beavers and others on the pages of the world's financial press helps to show that ecosystems deliver benefits worth staggering amounts of money - yet we scarcely keep track of it.
Is it worth trying to put a price on the natural world, when things like water and food are priceless? Yes, says Paul Sutton - without knowing the value of the environment, we might not value it at all.
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Top contributors
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Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Denver
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Honorary Research Fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of Melbourne
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Professor and VC's Chair, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, RMIT University
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Chief Science and Policy Officer, Conservation Biology Institute; Affiliate Full Professor, University of Washington at Bothell; Research Associate, University of Cape Town (ACDI and FitzPatrick Institute), University of Cape Town
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Associate Professor at the Fenner School, Australian National University
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Full Professor of Political Economy, University of Pretoria
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Professor of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg; Research Associate, Stellenbosch University; Professor of Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University
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Visiting Professor at Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
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Associate Professor, Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University
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Associate Director, Research Services, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
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Professor of Property Development Studies, University of Sheffield
