It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The term ‘historical ecology’ has been used with various meanings since the first half of the 20th century. Studies labelled as historical ecology have been produced in at least four academic disciplines: history, ecology, geography and anthropology. Although all those involved seem to agree that historical ecology concerns the historical interconnectedness of nature and human culture, this field of study has no unified methodology, specialized institutional background and common publication forums. Knowledge of the development of historical ecology is also limited. As a result, the current multitude of definitions of historical ecology is accompanied by divergent opinions as to where the origins of the field are to be sought. In this review, I follow the development of historical ecology from the 18th century to the present. In the first part, I briefly describe some early examples of historical ecological investigations, followed by a description of the various scientific strands in the 20th century that contributed to the formation of historical ecology. In the second part, I discuss the past five decades of historical ecological investigations in more detail, focusing mostly (but not exclusively) on works that their respective authors identified as historical ecology. I also examine the appearance and interconnectedness of the two main trends (ecological and anthropological) in historical ecological research. In the last part, I attempt to outline the future of historical ecology based on common features in existing research. It appears that at present historical ecology is at a crossroads. With rapidly growing interest in historical ecological research, it may move towards institutionalization or remain an umbrella term.
Thursday, September 08, 2022
IOP Publishing’s open access Environmental Research journal series expands with the opening of the first issue of Environmental Research: Ecology
IMAGE: FIRST ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH - ECOLOGYview more
CREDIT: IOP PUBLISHING
IOP Publishing (IOPP) has published the first articles in the open access journal, Environmental Research: Ecology featuring research from a number of world-renowned ecologists. The journal represents one of three new interdisciplinary titles opening in 2022 that will extend IOPP’s Environmental Research series to six open access journals. The full suite of environmental journals provide universally accessible publishing options covering the most critical areas of environmental science and sustainability in support of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals.
Environmental Research: Ecology is devoted to addressing the interface of environmental science, large-scale ecology, biodiversity and conservation. The journal publishes full-length research papers, without word restriction, alongside other content including authoritative reviews, perspectives and opinion pieces. It builds on the established reputation of Environmental Research Letters and shares the same modern publishing principles as part of IOPP’s expanding Environmental Research series.
IOPP’s Environmental Research series of journals combine outstanding levels of author service, inclusive editorial policies, strict quality assurance and have open science principles at their core. In the spirit of transparency and reproducibility, authors publishing in the journal are encouraged to share data and code where appropriate for the benefit of the research community. Authors also have the option to submit their papers for double anonymous and transparent peer review.
In support of the community and the journal’s first authors, the open access Article Publication Charges (APCs) are being covered by IOPP for all articles submitted to Environmental Research: Ecology through to the end of 2023.
Environmental Research: Ecology Editor-in-Chief Professor Scott Goetz, Northern Arizona University, USA says: “Ecosystems across the globe are undergoing enormous changes brought about by alteration of the climate system and related transformations associated with human activity. The need to both mitigate and adapt to these changes has been recognised by international policy agreements, yet policies need to be better informed by ecological research. Environmental Research: Ecology provides a platform for incorporating fundamental and applied ecological research using a diverse range of approaches to address realistic science-based policy solutions.”
Published in the first issue is an impactful study that examines the effects of past and current climate variability on global forest productivity. The work highlights sensitive regions where forests may be most at risk as the planet warms and temperatures become more extreme. Dr Winslow Hansen, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, New York, lead author of the study comments: “Forests influence a number of ecological factors. Trees sequester carbon emissions that would otherwise cause climate warming, support much of the planet’s biodiversity, and provide essential services such as fuel, food, and clean water and air. Human-caused shifts in mean climate and climate variability could fundamentally alter 21st-century forests with profound consequences for our planet and its ecosystem. The new Environmental Research: Ecology journal provides a platform for climate scientists to further develop, explore, and discover new policies to protect our ecosystem and combat climate change.”
Dr Tim Smith, Associate Director at IOPP says: “This further expansion of our Environmental Research series builds upon the established reputation and publishing values of Environmental Research Letters and enhances the role we want IOP Publishing to have in serving a multidisciplinary field of great importance. The first articles in Environmental Research: Ecology as the latest addition to the portfolio provide an early glimpse of the quality and breadth of science that the ecology community can expect from a journal aimed at delivering a combination of outstanding publishing services and content for researchers worldwide.”
Friday, September 02, 2022
IOP Publishing’s open access Environmental Research journal series expands with the opening of the first issue of Environmental Research: Ecology
IOP Publishing (IOPP) has published the first articles in the open access journal, Environmental Research: Ecology featuring research from a number of world-renowned ecologists. The journal represents one of three new interdisciplinary titles opening in 2022 that will extend IOPP’s Environmental Research series to six open access journals. The full suite of environmental journals provide universally accessible publishing options covering the most critical areas of environmental science and sustainability in support of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals.
Environmental Research: Ecology is devoted to addressing the interface of environmental science, large-scale ecology, biodiversity and conservation. The journal publishes full-length research papers, without word restriction, alongside other content including authoritative reviews, perspectives and opinion pieces. It builds on the established reputation of Environmental Research Letters and shares the same modern publishing principles as part of IOPP’s expanding Environmental Research series.
IOPP’s Environmental Research series of journals combine outstanding levels of author service, inclusive editorial policies, strict quality assurance and have open science principles at their core. In the spirit of transparency and reproducibility, authors publishing in the journal are encouraged to share data and code where appropriate for the benefit of the research community. Authors also have the option to submit their papers for double anonymous and transparent peer review.
In support of the community and the journal’s first authors, the open access Article Publication Charges (APCs) are being covered by IOPP for all articles submitted to Environmental Research: Ecology through to the end of 2023.
Environmental Research: Ecology Editor-in-Chief Professor Scott Goetz, Northern Arizona University, USA says: “Ecosystems across the globe are undergoing enormous changes brought about by alteration of the climate system and related transformations associated with human activity. The need to both mitigate and adapt to these changes has been recognised by international policy agreements, yet policies need to be better informed by ecological research. Environmental Research: Ecology provides a platform for incorporating fundamental and applied ecological research using a diverse range of approaches to address realistic science-based policy solutions.”
Published in the first issue is an impactful study that examines the effects of past and current climate variability on global forest productivity. The work highlights sensitive regions where forests may be most at risk as the planet warms and temperatures become more extreme. Dr Winslow Hansen, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, New York, lead author of the study comments: “Forests influence a number of ecological factors. Trees sequester carbon emissions that would otherwise cause climate warming, support much of the planet’s biodiversity, and provide essential services such as fuel, food, and clean water and air. Human-caused shifts in mean climate and climate variability could fundamentally alter 21st-century forests with profound consequences for our planet and its ecosystem. The new Environmental Research: Ecology journal provides a platform for climate scientists to further develop, explore, and discover new policies to protect our ecosystem and combat climate change.”
Dr Tim Smith, Associate Director at IOPP says: “This further expansion of our Environmental Research series builds upon the established reputation and publishing values of Environmental Research Letters and enhances the role we want IOP Publishing to have in serving a multidisciplinary field of great importance. The first articles in Environmental Research: Ecology as the latest addition to the portfolio provide an early glimpse of the quality and breadth of science that the ecology community can expect from a journal aimed at delivering a combination of outstanding publishing services and content for researchers worldwide.”
British Ecological Society announces 2022 award winners
IMAGE: BES AWARDS 2022 COLLAGE. TOP ROW (L-R) ANNE MAGURRAN, MARGARET PALMER, RICHARD HOBBS, KATE JONES, KATHLEEN TRESEDER. BOTTOM ROW (L-R) PERPETRA AKITE, CHRIS CLEMENTS, YVONNE BUCKLEY, LYNN DICKS, BES REED ECOLOGICAL NETWORK.view more
CREDIT: BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Today, the British Ecological Society (BES) announces the winners of its annual awards and prizes, recognising ten distinguished ecologists and groups whose work has benefited the scientific community and society in general.
This year, honorary membership, the highest honour given by the society, has been awarded to three distinguished ecologists based in three different continents: Anne Magurran, Margaret Palmer and Richard Hobbs, representing the global membership of the BES.
The BES REED Ecological Network are named this year’s Equality and Diversity Champions. Established in 2020 by a small group of early career ecologists from under-represented and marginalised ethnicities, the network has gone from strength to strength and now deliver highly successful workshops on allyship.
The 2022 BES award winners are as follows:
Honorary Membership: Anne Magurran, University of St Andrews; Margaret Palmer, The University of Maryland; Richard Hobbs, The University of Western Australia.
Honorary membership is the highest honour we can give and it recognises an exceptional contribution at international level to the generation, communication and promotion of ecological knowledge and solutions.
Anne Magurran
Anne Magurran is a world leader in measuring biodiversity and has studied fish communities throughout her career to explore this topic, as well as the evolution of biodiversity, and the role of predation in the evolution of social behaviour.
Anne is a professor at the University of St Andrews, where she is the university's most cited female scientist. Globally, she is the second most cited female ecologist and evolutionary biologist. Anne is also an international counsellor and advisor on issues of conservation related to biodiversity and engaged in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and in the World Economic Forum in 2018.
On being made an honorary member, Anne said: “The BES was the first society I joined, and helped set me on the path to a career in ecology, so I feel very privileged to be awarded Honorary Membership.
“I hope colleagues and friends around the world will feel part of the award, recognise the importance of their own contributions to ecology, and will be inspired to continue asking important and interesting ecological questions.”
Margaret Palmer
Margaret Palmer is a Professor at the University of Maryland and an international leader in restoration ecology.
Margaret is known for her work at the interface of science and policy. She co-designed and now directs a national synthesis centre (SESYNC) that has championed new approaches to fostering research collaborations between social and natural scientists on problems at the interface of people and the environment.
On being made an honorary member, Margaret said: “This is a great honour, and it rightly belongs to the very smart students, collaborators, and intellectual communities that have surrounded me throughout my career.
“Perhaps the most rewarding path in my career has included brainstorming with and learning from international communities of environmental, social, and legal scholars to advance the sustainability of coupled human-natural systems, and this honour is certainly theirs as well.”
Richard Hobbs
Richard Hobbs is a Professor at the University of Western Australia where he heads up the Ecosystem Restoration and Intervention Ecology Research Group. Throughout his career, Richard has made outstanding contributions to the science of ecology, conservation and restoration.
Richard is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies.
On being made an honorary member, Richard said: “I joined the BES during the first year of my PhD in 1977 and attended the winter meeting in Lancaster that year. My first paper was published in Journal of Ecology. Later, I contributed regular essays to the Bulletin from Australia, under the title “From our Southern Correspondent."
“So, the BES has been an important part of my life throughout my career. I’m incredibly honoured to be given this award, and humbled to be joining such an amazing group of ecologists. It’s particularly rewarding for me to be recognised by the society with which I ‘grew up’ professionally.”
Marsh Award for Ecology: Kate Jones, University College London
This prize is awarded for an outstanding current research record which is having a significant impact on the development of the science of ecology or its application. It is provided by the Marsh Charitable Trust and administered by the British Ecological Society.
Kate Jones is Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity at University College London (UCL), and the Director of the People and Nature Lab in UCL's new campus in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Over the course of Kate’s career she has made key advances in modelling and forecasting zoonotic disease outbreaks in humans, breaking down traditional barriers between ecology, climate change and public health to inform global policy.
Kate said: “I’m absolutely delighted to receive this award. Healthy ecosystems are critical for all human endeavours, and ecology is moving centre stage as the foundation to address the pressing issues of our time such as pandemics, climate change, and food security. Over the course of my career, I have seen the BES grow into such a brilliant, vibrant, and inclusive society which I am so proud to be part of. This honour from BES means the world to me.
Marsh Award for Climate Change Research: Kathleen Treseder, University of California, Irvine
This prize is awarded for an outstanding contribution to climate change research. It is provided by the Marsh Charitable Trust and administered by the British Ecological Society.
Kathleen Treseder is Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. Over her career she has made many significant contributions to our understanding of how soil fungi mediate ecosystem responses to climate change. Her overarching goal is to improve predictions of future trajectories of global change, by incorporating feedbacks governed by fungi.
On receiving the award, Kathleen said: “I am surprised and grateful to win this award. My lab's mission is to improve predictions of future climate change so we can help society mitigate and adapt to it. I see this award as a sign that we have indeed helped.”
Marsh Award for Ecologists in Africa: Perpetra Akite, Makerere University
This prize aims to celebrate the significant scientific achievements of African ecologists and raise their profile in the UK. It is provided by the Marsh Charitable Trust and administered by the British Ecological Society.
Perpetra is one of Uganda’s leading entomologists and experts in butterflies. She has made important advances in improving knowledge around insects in Uganda, contributing to assessing and mapping key ecologically sensitive species in the country. She even has a moth named after her.
Perpetra is also passionate about passing on her knowledge to younger generations and takes part in a great deal of outreach activities at both school and university level. Her goal is to encourage more young people – especially African girls - to begin a career in science.
Perpetra said: “I am so honoured to receive the award, and feel very proud to represent women in ecology from Uganda. This award is simply the right landmark at this point of my ecological career, and I am deeply grateful to the BES for this recognition.
“Ecological excellence is not just about filling up library shelves, but being able to share that information with others. This award will provide me with a platform for relatable professional anchoring and mentorship for the coming generations of female ecologists, who can easily relate to a local achiever while in pursuit of their own ecological careers.”
Founders’ Prize: Chris Clements, University of Bristol
This Prize commemorates the enthusiasm and vision of the Society’s founders. It is awarded to an outstanding early career ecologist who is starting to make a significant contribution to the science of ecology.
Chris Clements works on the interface between experimental ecology and conservation biology, with his research focusing on developing and testing early warning signals of population collapse, with a view to predicting regime shifts prior to their occurrence. To do this he and his group synthesise information from mathematical models, small-scale experimental systems, and long-term wild population data.
On receiving the award, Chris said: “I am honestly still overwhelmed by it. The BES is such an institution that it’s hard to express how honoured I feel. Receiving this has really motivated me to continue to do the research I love, as well as making me very thankful to all the people who have helped get me here – fantastic supervisors, collaborators, and now my own students and lab group members.
“The BES has been central to all of this – I’ve been attending the annual meetings since I was a student, and they’ve significantly shaped my research, network of collaborators, and the opportunities I’ve had.”
BES Award: Yvonne Buckley, Trinity College Dublin
This Award is made in recognition of exceptional service to the Society.
Yvonne Buckley is Professor of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin and has spent time in Ireland, the UK and Australia throughout her research career. Yvonne is a population ecologist who applies fundamental ecology to pressing challenges for the environment and society.
Yvonne said: “The ecological community of the BES is full of people I look up to and admire so I am absolutely delighted to be recognised in this way. I have had many opportunities throughout my career to work with amazing people. These connections and collaborations have been crucial to the work I’ve done, so I’d like this award to reflect their achievements too.”
Ecological Engagement Award: Lynn Dicks, Cambridge University
This Award recognises an ecologist who has bridged the gap between ecology and other groups.
Lynn Dicks is a Lecturer in Animal Ecology at the University of Cambridge. A key part of Lynn’s work focusses on how farmers can benefit from ecosystem services. Lynn and members of the Cambridge Agroecology group work with farmers to co-design research projects and gather data on how they manage their systems with the overall goal of understanding how we can reduce impacts on wildlife in realistic commercial contexts.
On receiving the award, Lynn said: “It feels fantastic to get this recognition for my efforts, over many years, to engage a range of stakeholders in conversations about how and why we should care for biodiversity.
“I owe this award to the many people who’ve taken time out of their busy working lives in NGOs, government departments and businesses, to join these conversations. Ecological research in real working landscapes, linked to real-world policies, simply wouldn’t be possible without their engagement, so thank you to all of them!”
Equality and Diversity Champion: BES REED Ecological Network
This annual award recognises an individual or group who have campaigned to highlight the importance of equality and diversity and worked to make a difference or served as an inspiration to others. It honours and celebrates those who have made significant, innovative and cumulatively outstanding contributions to enhancing the practice of equality and diversity in the ecological community.
The REED (Racial and Ethnic Equality and Diversity) ecological network was initially founded by Reuben Fakoya Brooks and then established by a small group of early career ecologists under-represented and marginalised ethnicities in 2020. The network seeks to drive positive change for a more inclusive and representative community of ecologists.
The group have developed a highly successful workshop on allyship that challenges what it means to be an effective ally, focussing on individual and organisational learning.
On receiving the award, Reuben Fakoya Brooks, founder and Chair of the REED ecological network said: “I was extremely taken aback when I had received the notification that I had won the award, but in all honestly I felt rewarded for getting up and taking the first step of a staircase that had not yet been scaled! There is still much, much, much more to be done and I feel like we as a network are just at the beginning.
“Like many awards, they often highlight the individual without giving true representation to the team behind the person. I’m receiving this reward as the Vice-chair Bushra Schuitemaker, as the committee and as all the network members. We are all equally pleased about being rewarded with such a notable accolade!”
Awards presentation
The winners will be presented with their prizes during a ceremony held at the BES Annual Meeting which runs from 18 – 21 December in Edinburgh. The meeting will bring together over 1000 ecologists (in person and online) to discuss the latest advances in ecological research across the whole discipline.
The Burnett Mary Regional Group in Queensland has completed Australia's first large-scale environmental audit.(ABC News: Patrick Heagney) Australia is on the verge of having the world's first national accounting system that tracks the health of a country's natural environment, according to former Treasury secretary Ken Henry.
Key points:
The Burnett Mary Regional Group in Queensland has completed Australia's first large-scale environmental audit
Dr Ken Henry says it could revolutionise the market system
It could lead to the world's first national environmental account
It may help to solve one of the most urgent problems facing humanity: how to reverse global environmental destruction.
"I think this is a game changer, I really do," he told the ABC.
"What we've done for the first time anywhere in the world at regional scale is to make an assessment, an audit if you like, of the environmental condition of the landscape.
"We've now demonstrated that it can be done ... and there is intense interest from financial markets people in seeing whether it's possible to commercialise this data, in the form of a biodiversity credit for example, and it looks like there is the possibility to do so."
Dr Henry said it will hopefully lead to future business profit-making also regenerating the planet.
"After all, almost all of human activity on earth rests one way or another upon the condition of the natural environment, and if we don't address the deterioration of the natural environment sometime pretty damn soon, the rest of it's going to come crashing down," he told the ABC.
So what is he talking about?
Ken Henry, former Treasury secretary, says the traditional business model of profit-maximisation that excludes environmental destruction from its calculations has done terrible damage to the planet(Source: John Gunn, ABC News)
One of Australia's systems of resource management
Australia is divided into 54 natural resource management regions (NRMs — see map below).
They are a mix of government and non-government organisations (NGOs) that deliver projects on the ground designed to improve the environment.
Many have been in existence since the mid-1990s and their origins can be traced to the landcare movement of the 1980s.
They've all been recognised as regional NRM organisations by the federal government as part of the Natural Heritage Trust and its successor programs including the National Landcare program.
The Australian Government has been a major investor in natural resource management since the mid 1980s(Source: NRM Regions Australia website)
Its territory includes Bundaberg, the Burnett and Mary rivers, and the world heritage-listed K'Gari (formerly Fraser Island).
It is the NRM that has conducted the environmental audit Dr Henry is talking about.
It has employed scientists to take a stocktake of the natural assets within its borders, including its plants and animals, its vegetation cover, its soil condition (including CO2 stores) and the health of its rivers and waterways, over 56,000 square kilometres.
To collect the data, the scientists used eDNA metabarcoding, portable water sensor smart-stations, satellite remote sensing and Bayesian modelling, and their methods were complemented by consultations with traditional owners.
Sheila Charlesworth, BMRG's chief executive, said it took over 18 months to compile the "environmental account", but it took years of work beforehand to perfect the methodology.
And she's excited about the next step.
"Now we can actually quantify and measure, on an annual basis, the difference that we're making [to the environment]," she said.
"It's not just for BMRG, it's for all NRM groups across Australia."
She said at the NRM national conference in Western Australia earlier this month, other NRMs made a commitment to take their own environmental stocktakes using the same methodology.
"We're currently working on the rollout of the road map for training across Australia," she said.
L to R: Tom Espinoza, director of research at BMRG, Brendan Fletcher, land and sea ranger at Gidarjil Development Corporation, Sheila Charlesworth, chief executive of BMRG, Brent Mclellan, operations manager at Gidarjil Development Corporation, Ben Hoekstra, project officer at BMRG
(ABC News: Patrick Heagney)
So what exactly does the environmental account do?
Dr Henry said the environmental account in the BMRG was important for one key reason.
He said it created a baseline dataset of the environment in that region, and that will allow scientists to track changes in the health of the environment over time — to see if it's degrading or improving.
He said that will lay the foundation for the creation of new markets that will attach a financial value to the improvement in environmental conditions.
And that means businesses will be incentivised to start pouring vast sums of money into projects that improve the environment because it will be the profitable thing to do.
He said the new markets will hopefully spread across the country as other NRMs take stocktakes of their own natural assets and "environmental accounting" goes mainstream.
YOUTUBE
Why nature is the next big asset class
Dr Henry said this concept was a personal passion.
He's now a director of a company called Accounting for Nature (AfN) that has developed the methodology and scientifically-based framework for the environmental accounting that has been used in the Queensland pilot.
Other AfN board members include Peter Harper, the former Deputy Australian Statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics who was responsible for the ABS's environmental statistics program, and chair Peter Cosier, the renowned conservationist and co-founder of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.
He said AfN was only established a few years ago, but the history of the company stretched back much further to his time in Treasury when he was having conversations with people like Peter Cosier.
"It's really his brainchild," he said of Mr Cosier.
Dr Henry said when he was Treasury secretary (between 2001 and 2011) he could see how policymakers were trying to make decisions affecting the wellbeing of millions of Australians, but those decisions were based on data about the environment that had huge information gaps.
"It struck me that the information available to us in the environmental area was particularly bad, particularly lacking in breadth and depth," he said.
"When you consider the State of the Environment reports that are published every five years ... you [see] the paucity of data the authors of those reports rely upon.
"The reports are incredibly well written, very high quality, but the data limitations are just absolutely staggering. And you know, report after report, the authors refer to data limitations, saying, 'If only we had better data'."
He said before AfN existed he'd taken the idea of environmental accounting to Malcolm Turnbull to see if he was interested in backing it. How Turnbull's leadership came crashing down Malcolm Turnbull is no longer the Prime Minister, after a leadership challenge that became uglier by the minute over the space of four days. Here's how it unfolded.
"A group of us, four of us, had a meeting with Malcolm Turnbull when he was prime minister, in his office in Sydney, and we took him through the methods and standards, the approach ... and we said the Australian government could roll this out around Australia, through the NRMs, one NRM at a time, and you would have, prime minister, the world's first national environmental account.
"And he said, 'I love it. We're going to do it.' But a few weeks later he lost his job."
Mr Turnbull lost the prime ministership in August 2018 when he was rolled by his partyroom and replaced by Scott Morrison as leader.
Dr Henry said after years of frustration and seeing "very little progress" at the national level in Australia on the production of a national environmental account, he and others had decided it was time to do something different.
"The Queensland government got in touch with some of us and said, 'We're aware that you have some intellectual property here, you know how to do this, we want to roll out our land restoration fund, and we need some really good indicators of environmental outcomes to back our scheme so it's a scheme that's credible and has high integrity'," he said.
"They encouraged us to set up this not-for-profit entity called Accounting for Nature, which we did about four years ago."
How will the new financial products work?
Martijn Wilder is the founder and chief executive of Pollination Group, a climate change investment and advisory firm.
He's taking the news of BMRG's environmental account to financial markets to explain to them what's happening in Australia.
He said the development of environmental improvement as an asset class was still in its early stages, but the benefits of the concept were obvious.
Martijn Wilder, the founder and chief executive of Pollination Group(ABC News: John Gunn)
That's a type of loan from a bank that incentivises businesses to invest money in the environment around them, to promote sustainability and protect the natural biodiversity of the local area, by offering cheaper interest rates for businesses that invest in local projects.
That type of product makes sense from a bank's perspective because it means the businesses it lends to will have a better chance of remaining profitable in the long-run, and it makes sense from an insurance company's perspective if it reduces the "nature risk" and "climate risk" facing businesses across the country. Pollution 'reduces butterflies, bees pollinating flowers' A study of the effects of common air pollutants at levels below national guidelines has found their presence significantly reduces the rate of pollination for bees and butterflies.
According to Mr Wilder, the BMRG's environmental account is significant because it will clearly show, with demonstrable results, if the environmental health of the region is improving over time. And if the environment is becoming healthier, it will increase the value of the region's natural assets.
He said there was "no clear precedent" for this type of thing and people were still trying to figure out how to value environmental assets as an asset class.
But it essentially came down to one thing: accepting that all human and economic activity relies on the natural environment, so the environment must be protected.
"We're seeing globally a movement towards the importance of trying to protect nature, but the challenge has been how to actually get capital to invest in that," he told the ABC.
"Some of the work we've been doing ... is looking at how do you actually invest in those more traditional activities that interact with nature, like farming, forestry, and do them in a more sustainable, regenerative way, that not only protects nature but also increases the productivity of the land.
"Over time, we're hoping that it will be possible to invest in biodiversity, to invest in wildlife and other aspects of nature, that will produce an economic return." Who has backed the project?
The pilot in Queensland had some financial backing from Andrew and Nicola Forrest's Minderoo Foundation.
Adrian Turner, who leads the foundation's Fire and Flood Resilience initiative, said the foundation invested millions in the project.
He said the foundation wanted to see a common way of measuring the condition of the environment that took into account how resilient different landscapes were to fire and floods.
"We think what will emerge is multiple classes of credit for investment vehicles, with the ones that take into account fire and flood resilience being valued highest," he told the ABC.
Adrian Turner leads the Minderoo Foundation's Fire and Flood Resilience initiative(ABC News: John Gunn)
"We're familiar with carbon credit schemes, but if we take that as an example, then a carbon offset or a carbon credit that's not taking into account the risk of fire and flood has to be worth less in our view, like if a fire roars through a landscape that's been regenerated, then effectively we're back to square one and having to start again."
Mr Turner said the Minderoo Foundation really wanted this environmental accounting approach to be scaled nationally and internationally.
"So we have a set of national natural capital accounts that can be used to inform private sector investment, government investment, and also to give us a consistent way to measure the impact over time of our actions as a society on biodiversity and the environment more broadly," he said.
When will companies become 'nature positive'?
Dr Adrian Ward, the chief executive of AfN, said the world was familiar with the concept of "climate risk".
But these new environmental accounts should help people think about "nature risk" too.
He said businesses will eventually have to expand their ambitions from being "net zero" to being "nature positive," which is a situation in which profitable companies are profitable precisely because they're having a net positive impact on the environment.
"Many farmers in Australia and worldwide have been doing incredible conservation and land restoration efforts for a long time, but they've never had a framework that shows the improvement in nature [that's occurred from their efforts]," he said.
Dr Adrian Ward, the chief executive of Accounting for Nature(ABC News: Steve Keen)
"So what we really hope is, and it's very early days, as we go into the future new markets will emerge ... that will pay farmers for the improvements they're making across the landscape."
He said AfN will be able to provide third-party audit certification for the environmental accounts of other NRMs to maintain the integrity of the data.
"Accounting for Nature was very much born to bring integrity to new environmental markets, and we'll do that through very strong and stringent governance and certification standards, which includes third-party audits," he said.
"All of the methods that are used to produce the environmental accounts ... are accredited by the group's science accreditation committee which includes some very well known scientists in the Australian community," he said. Using the market system to save the environment (and capitalism)
Dr Henry said the world had come a long way in recent decades, because concern for the environment was no longer confined to people living on the "fringe" of society.
He said everyone was realising that the old business model of profit-maximisation that excluded environmental destruction from its calculations was an appalling failure.
This is how to calculate GDP The history of the GDP measurement is fascinating, but the number has its problems.
GDP measures economic output. But it's not the only measure of national wellbeing - and may not be the best.
"We've now got shareholders, they're the beneficiaries of the profits, but they're saying, 'Hang on, this is not right'," he said.
"We've got workers saying, 'Why the hell would I want to work for you, given the damage that you're inflicting on the natural environment?'
"We've got consumers saying, 'Why would I buy your products, given the damage you've been inflicting on the natural environment?'
"All of these — the shareholders, the workers, and the consumers — they are putting at risk the viability of that business [model], and so the businesses themselves are now reacting and they're saying, 'Okay, in order to save ourselves, we have to address the negative externalities that we're generating.' "So, this is business saving itself from itself," he told the ABC.
Dr Ken Henry says governments have been "absolutely hopeless" at protecting the environment(ABC News: Joanne Shoebridge)
Hunter Lovins sent a draft of Factor Four to Paul Hawken in early 1995. He saw that it was the exposition that natural capitalism needed if it were to make ...
POLITICAL ECONOMY WAS ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Web2019-03-31 · It was originally formulated by Adam Smith and subsequently elaborated by David Ricardo. It is also found in the work of Karl Marx. The theory posits three necessary …
Web2022-08-10 · World system theory lays the blame for land-use/land-cover change not on population per se, but rather on the organization of the world political economy …
Web2003-03-01 · [Show full abstract] ecology: (1) work employing theorizations of the social production of space and the co-constitution of nature, space, and society; (2) …
WebThe first involves bringing our knowledge of Chinese economic history closer to parity with what we know about Europe, largely by making estimates for consumption, income, and …
WebOriginating in the 18th and 19th centuries with philosophers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Thomas Malthus, political economy attempted to explain the relationships between economic production and political processes.
WebThe world is beset by crises of a political-economic and political-ecological character. Only by challenging power will we come to grips with these. And South Africa, the world’s most unequal society, offers a clear window into …
WebPolitical ecology as a branch of knowledge has to address three crucial problems: limited resources and their uneven distribution; the relationship between industrialization and pressures on the environment; and finally, pollution and waste. The analysis of the problems in this order looks most logical from the standpoint of the production cycle.
WebPolitical ecology is at the confluence between ecologically rooted social science and the principles of political economy. It explicitly aims to represent an alternative to apolitical ecology (Forsyth, 2008). The field synthesises the central questions asked by the social sciences about the relations between human society and its bio-cultural ...
Web2007-01-01 · PDF | On Jan 1, 2007, Bob Jessop published Political Economy, Political Ecology, and Democratic Socialism | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
Web2022-08-10 · World system theory lays the blame for land-use land-cover change not on population per se, but rather on the organization of the world political economy
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/ethicsenviro.22.2.01 · PDF file
Weba “broadly defined political economy,” cultural ecology (otherwise known as “ecological anthropology”), and the natural science of ecology. These ... Marxism, giving birth to the first phase of political ecology
