Challenges in using valuation in ecosystem-based management in a marine context: the case of UK Marine Protected Area designation - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 260

7.5.2 Should we be promoting an ecosystem based approach
using environmental valuation?
As alluded to previously, Costanza et al . ( 1997 ) find that marine and coastal ecosystems
provide two-thirds of global ecosystem provisioning, and this provisioning is threatened by
environmental drivers and anthropogenic drivers. The choice as to whether to pursue the use
of environmental valuation is thus not a trivial one, i.e. if it leads to better decision-making,
which in turn probably implies more conservation, then is it an appropriate means to an end?
Child ( 2009 ) cited in Fletcher ( 2012 ) argues that we should create a 'culture of care'
rather than using economic efficiency as a yardstick to determine the extinction (through an-
thropogenic pressures) of a 'non economically-useful' species, trading this loss for the pro-
tection of a 'useful' habitat, with 'usefulness' being measured in utilitarian anthropocentric
terms,coinedaroundecosystemserviceprovisioning.Itisdifficulttoargueagainstthismor-
al position (which follows the eco-centric views of Aldo Leopold), but in pragmatic terms
species and habitats are being lost, and the question remains as to whether economics (in
terms of valuation) helps or hinders. The Arrow report (Arrow et al ., 1993 ) was mentioned
previously: the authors state '[it is] hard to imagine that the establishment of property rights
or improved pricing of natural resources could worsen the prospects of future generations'.
So this is an expression of the opposing (or perhaps contrarian) position.
There is an argument, however, that economic valuation does indeed hinder rather than
help the process. The commoditization of nature is very real - biodiversity offsets and pay-
ments for ecosystem services (PES) provide evidence to support this contention. Non-mar-
ket valuation is a catalyst for this commoditization. If the valuation used is biased such that
thevalueestimate usedinthePESanalysisislow,thenitcanindeedbearguedthatthiscom-
moditization is counter-productive. The scope for such processes of undervaluing nature is
huge from omitted value categories, to transferring value estimates from one or more study
sites (using benefits transfer) that understate value at the policy site. If there is an incentive
for such undervaluation then a systemic problem arises; consultants may be commissioned