On Wednesday 17th April Fauna & Flora International (FFI) hosted a dinner for it’s Conservation Circle members. The theme for the evening was ‘Putting a Price on Nature’, for which FFI had the privilege of having Tony Juniper, former director of Friends of the Earth and leading environmentalist, as their guest speaker. The presentation was recorded especially to share with FFI’s supporters on Oryx Circle. FFI encourages the dissemination of the Oryx Circle content, so you can see and hear his interesting and thought provoking speech here.
Tony Jupiter talks about the valuation of nature and that up until now ecology is subservient to economy. When addressing the some values of nature in the market such as timber, tuna, land that is good for agriculture which we recognise having value in the market, he notes:
He provides a lot of examples why nature’s diversity should be fostered and valued to ensure its continuity. For instance, if we not had let the frogs go extinct that brooded tadpoles in their stomach we might have found an excellent cure for gastric ulcers examining this phenomenon. Unfortunately, these frogs do not exist anymore. And what will happen he wonders if we do not economically value the work of bees as pollinators, which is an important ecosystem service. He explains why the use of the pharmaceutical diclofenac in cows in India led to an increase of human cases of rabies on the Indian continent. Well, this and more in the video below:
(Source: Oryx Circle, 25.04.2013)