To value or not to value

In The Guardian this week George Monbiot argues that you cannot put a price on nature and Tony Juniper responds by saying that valuing nature is the only way to afford it some protection.

Actually they are both right.

In a capitalist world that measures success by growth and therefore unsustainable consumption, monetary metrics is the only language that the boardroom and cabinet office understand. Therefore we have to put a price on nature just to get it on the agenda. What we cannot allow to happen is for the value to be 'bargain basement' or 'but one get one free'.

However the problems associated with value would not arise if we really did appreciate nature for its own sake. A number of us see beauty in nature and are heartened at the return of migrating birds or seeing a species of flower or butterfly for the first time that year but far too many people only see beauty in branding, personalities, cars, phones, computer games and apps.

Putting a monetary value on nature isn't a panacea, it isn't suddenly going to reverse the trend of habitat loss but it might make people stop for a second and think about nature. Something that Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast Thinking Slow, calls System 2 thinking, which means we give a situation proper consideration rather than just jumping to a quick conclusion, such as "It's only a tree."

The longer term challenge is to help people understand that nature is foundation of all life, not just the economy.