Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Development: Local and Global Dimensions

Abstract

The Convention on Biological Diversity, the Biodiversity Convention for short, is motivated first and foremost by the desire to protect an asset of multifaceted value to both current and future generations. It speaks of ‘the intrinsic value of biological diversity and of the ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic values of biological diversity and it’s components.’¹ Although not cast in these terms, this long list of attributes is encapsulated in the concept of total economic value (TEV). Most of the attributes refer to the value of biodiversity in use, but ‘intrinsic value’ is clearly a notion that is independent of use. In economic analysis, the value placed on biotic resources which is independent of the use to which those resources are or could be put is defined as non-use value. At least one component of this non-use value, ‘existence value’, captures the sense of the ‘intrinsic value’ of biological resources referred to in the convention [Turner and Pearce, 1992]. While the use value of biotic resources is determined in the same way as the value in use of any other resources — by reference to the social opportunity cost of those resources — and is captured by the expected consumer surplus associated with their use, the estimation of non-use value is on less certain ground. Nonetheless, the TEV of biodiversity may be expressed as the sum of expected consumer surplus and the existence value of biotic resources.