Ode Magazine is a great one for making us think a bit differently.
A recent article speaks of an association called Forest Trends that attempts to monetize the specialness of different forest tracks.
“Forest Trends has developed a detailed system for expressing the value of ecological improvements in terms of ‘ecosystem services’. Water purfication, wind shielding, carbon storage, nice views and so on are worth money, after all.
Forest Trends expresses this value in PES, or ‘payments for ecosystem services.’ Assigning a financial value to a project that, say, improves water purification in an ecosystem or allows more carbon to be stored generates an income for the landowner or local population”
Sadly we all have heard how many of the problems Haiti has experienced is due to the clear cutting of important forest land that prevents top soil run off and contributes to flooding.
A forest has always been seen by timber companies as a resource to farm and replant, but if a forest can be proven to have other economic return then clear cutting may not be the highest and best use.
Of course we have always felt that a total audit of plant and animal species in a forest and the assigning of a value to each species would generate a massive worldwide “respect of life” value that would surprise most humans
Here’s Forest Trends website
Conservastore believes in Fair Trade and supports respecting local communities and habitat
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