A conservation practitioner shares how entrepreneurs can protect ecosystems by selling their value. Tagua nuts harvested from rainforests go to Patagonia. Market-based approaches monetize ecosystem services like clean water, air, and pollination.
When I joined Conservation International 30 years ago, we had a $3 to $5 million budget, and we were picking up tagua nuts, which are palm nuts, and selling them to Patagonia to make buttons out of. And we were giving people an economic alternative to unsustainable development. And that continues to be the model that I think is most most useful. So people who are involved in entrepreneurial enterprises, I think, are a big part of the solution to create new ways of addressing the issues, to create— to take advantage of the technology to create jobs and a marketplace that that helps affect the condition of nature. One of the things that's been most useful is the notion of monetizing the services of nature, putting an actual value on them, and allowing that information to generate change. We can't provide for ourselves. We don't have the technology. We don't have the capital to provide for ourselves what nature provides to us in its healthy state. Clean water from an undisturbed watershed, clean air, which we've got a very pressing need for, sources of food, sources of pollination. All of these things are the services of nature that we cannot afford as human beings to replicate for ourselves.
O processo de reconhecer limites, mesmo quando a vida parece exigir sempre mais.
Depois de tantas histórias, aprendizados e pausas necessárias, o @interior_iza está de volta
