As the IUCN World Conservation Congress kicks off in France on Friday, an urgent question will be how to reduce the devastation wrought by humanity on the environment."It's the only way to speak the same language as political decision-makers," Nathalie Girouard, an expert on environmental policy at intergovernmental think tank OECD, told AFP.Chemical-intensive agriculture, over-fishing, pollution and climate change are all pushing ecosystems to the brink of collapse.
Mary Ruckelshaus, head of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University, acknowledges that it is a complex task. "They help protect coastlines, communities from sea-level rise and hurricanes," she says, adding that such a"service" is worth millions, in some cases billions, of dollars.But she says such numbers cannot always cover the true cost of harming a resource.
"If you articulate and quantify where the most value is for each stakeholder, often you don't have as many trade-offs as you think," she says.Some $44 trillion of annual economic value generation -- half of the world's gross domestic product -- is moderately or highly dependent on nature, according to the World Economic Forum.
She believes that legislation, not financial incentive, will work best to protect remaining ecosystems.
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