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Resource Valuation: New Way of Valuing Our Natural Capital for Conservation

Forest: priceless capital for our survival. (Photo: Dr. Edwino Fernando)

By Ester Batangan

In conservation work, the concept of Resource Valuation is relatively new. Its application, however, has long been needed for local decision-making on natural resources conservation and development.

Why is Resource Valuation orientation for local decision makers important?

Resource Valuation seeks to look into the current policy direction underlying the growing demand for land, forest, marine, water and minerals vis-à-vis economic projects designed to address the current fiscal deficit.

This policy direction is taking a toll on the few remaining old-growth forests that host several of the country’s Important Biodiversity Areas (IBAs). A considerable number of these IBAs are threatened by large-scale land conversion activities such as mining, logging, industrial plantation, agriculture and urban expansion that adversely affect the rich biodiversity of these areas. The World Resources Institute (2003) reported that more than half (56%) of mining exploration areas and mining leases overlap with areas of high ecological vulnerability. It further notes that more than one quarter of approved mining leases and eight percent of exploration areas overlap with approximately 60,000 hectares of forested areas.

Waterless stream: taking the life-support value of the forest for granted.

As a consequence of this, issues and concerns affecting local decision-making have begun to figure prominently. For instance, what role could the local government units, communities and local stakeholders in large-scale natural resource investment play, beyond being mere dole-out beneficiaries and source of cheap labor? How are local decisions and legislations on forest and watershed protection viewed by national policy makers? How can local decision makers leverage their position when information is inadequate? How can local decision makers go about strengthening their watchdog function in monitoring the operation of these extractive industries when local stakeholders are being divided? It is within the context of such issues and concerns that the need to evolve a tool, which would determine best resource-use option and generate better revenue collection for local stakeholders emerged.

Beyond concept orientation

Our natural capital has always been vulnerable to global access. Our economic as well as environmental policy regimes have always viewed our natural resources as marketable goods. Never mind if over-logged forest causes excessive landslides and flashfloods, over-harvested marine resources bring about biodiversity loss, and over-drawn water triggers drought for as long as income and revenues are generated to respond to the current fiscal crisis.

State agencies, local political players as well as private and multi-national investors have been extracting natural resources without due valuation of negative externalities that industries create. Permitting systems of concessions and product harvesting are geared towards generation of maximum rents and profits in favor of investors and powers-that-be. Hence, the poor remains poor, and poverty worsens.

How we give the conservation of our natural resources a low value and pay a high price because of their destruction
Leaving deadly trails and tailings behind		Cutting the trees for cutthroat profits and effects
Unearthing the minerals the "responsible" way		Making water unfit for life

Resource Valuation offers a strategy of providing incentives to the poor who are directly dependent on natural resources. One such incentive is the so-called Payment for Environmental Services (PES). Environmental protectors such as upland and coastal communities collaborating in environmental protection such as marine sanctuaries, forest and watershed, priority biodiversity areas could be paid or compensated in terms of wages and services rendered. In the broader sense, payment means rewards or incentives.

PES should involve ‘sellers’ and ‘buyers’ in economic sense. Sellers are the providers of environmental services such as upland and coastal communities working for marine, forest and watershed resources protection, while ‘buyers’ are beneficiaries of environmental services. They could be water users (e.g. local water districts, irrigators, etc), hydroelectric consumers, carbon traders, bio-prospecting firms, and research institutions, among others. PES mechanisms for specific resource could be site, industry or sector-based.

In the light of these challenges and their implications for the future, Resource Valuation acquires a great deal of urgency. It can no longer remain as an exclusive domain of specialists nor an equipment of the select few. It has to be made available and accessible to grassroots communities whose subsistence depends on the use of natural resources.

Ester Batangan is Haribon’s advocacy staff. She has several years of experience in advocating for biodiversity conservation.

Note: Haribon Foundation is offering a training course on Resource Valuation for local planners and decision-makers.