Environmental economics is pretty complex but is key to unlocking solutions to solve the ecological and climate emergency. Nature economics has evolved several main streams- economic capital generated by tour companies, optic companies etc, economic capital generated in the ecological consultancy sector, the NGO/charity sector (funded through donations, grants, funding pots etc e.g. RSPB, Wildlife Trusts etc), the academic sector (funded by both private and public investment e.g. Cornell Lab etc), other small sectors (nature media etc) and last but not least the somewhat more intangible community kudos or social credit 'sector' (e.g. facebook likes, blog stats, other social media credits, life lists, finds lists, publications lists etc). The social credit aspect in birding/natural history is presumably quite unique in society. Not many people make any money from writing a bird book, or annual report, or running a bird club, or finding a rare bird or moth, or running a facebook page, or building a birding website and despite this lack of monetary incentivisation there are some ground breaking achievements being achieved in some natural history quarters by privately funded non-profits (e.g the Norfolk Moths website, The Sound Approach, Gull Research Organisation and us at Little Oak Group :-)). It's clearly bollox that market forces are the only forces in creating innovation.
There is clearly a huge over supply of labour in natural history which is why so many people are quite happy to provide data to e.g. BTO or Ebird for free and to volunteer in the birding community. Its a hobby for most people but for many people they engage in a way that it is much more than a 'hobby'. It's a lifestyle choice/ sub-culture which is counter current. Another way of framing this is that natural history is hugely undervalued and there is an enormous potential for growing the sector. Surely this is key to solving the ecological and climate emergency and creating the sustainable society.
While it is laudable that so many people are willing to volunteer it is also problematic in that it out competes those who are trying to make a living out of it and leads to certain bodies like the CIEEM actively persecuting the volunteer sector and blocking the use of citizen science data in decision making. This is fundamentally the result of a limited resource, which is also diminishing fast (through ecological destruction) with too many players and not enough 'consumers' (people paying for it).
The problem lies in the lack of a 'currency', that can be traded and can facilitate in the development of natural capital 'industries'. Over the last decade or so, carbon markets, carbon exchanges, carbon offsets have emerged in a drive to measure carbon footprints and then rewarding those who are reducing their footprints and effectively punishing those who are not (carbon reducers are awarded carbon credits that polluters have to buy to offset their inability or unwillingness to reduce theirs) e.g. in 2018 EU Carbon credits traded between approx $8 and $26. At the moment companies do this voluntary although of course a crystallised version of this needs to be mandatory in the future to achieve global net zero and avoid climate chaos in Post Capitalism.
The same is true of the biodiversity crisis. We need to be establishing baselines, forming biodiversity credits and building markets and exchanges. How do we do this?- carbon is an element, carbon dioxide a molecular and measuring it is relatively simple. However biodiversity is basically everything alive that isn't human. A metric would have to be an index (like the FTSE) and certain types of measurements would need to form that index- e.g. number of breeding territories, number of species, number of red data list species in the context of e.g. per hectare. People generating natural capital should be rewarded by being awarded biodiversity credits that could trade in the same way as carbon credits.
Furthermore there are other ways of creating currency to increase more fluidity in achieving net biodiversity gain. Providing data could be incentivised further (how long can we be sustained by social media likes and isn't it biased towards dumb stuff like twitching a rare bird or adopting some polarised position and becoming a covid or carbon police twat?). The BTO and Cornell have people in relatively well paid positions that make their money from processing data provided by free labour. This is basically slavery but voluntary (so its okay?) but you could argue in late stage Capitalism with only poor quality paid jobs available and mass obsolescence that it makes sense to increase this labour market by paying people to collect data and populate these emerging global databases e.g. Ebird. These platforms could be monetised even by their own virtual currency (a birding cryptocurrency - BIRDCOIN that could even be traded). More simple monetary incentivisation could be achieved by providing e.g. Free subscriptions to Cornell's Birds of the World for Top Ebirders (those submitting so many records or checklists a year) or the State could provide solutions by providing birding options as get back to work route options (tie it into Universal Basic Income or Universal Credits- you only get your dole money if you go birding!). Basically the fundamentally principle is - maximise incentive to engage in nature to build the community and increase value. However this also needs to be done while simultaneously punishing and torturing those who are destroying natural capital- through taxing to death the unsustainable sector- the role of groups like Extinction Rebellion increasing security/developments costs for capitalists is also vital as the governments are too lobbyist infiltrated .
The nascent position of the natural history community is very problematic. Those who seek to make a living from it will try and hold down others because the community actually requires massive investment to get it off the ground and trying to make a living out of it now is like trying to milk a heard of bulls- it will drive people crazy. We need big investment in the infrastructure to build the nature economy.
Valuing nature correctly is key to protecting it. There needs to be stock markets in natural capital, we need natural capital billionaires (people who own more species and bird territories than anyone else) , we need gorgeous and sexy celebrities (not Bill Oddie !) who have massive twitter followers because they are wealthy in natural capital and show off natural wealth that creates envy and inspiration), we need Birding Forbes and society platforms (like Hello Magazine) that feature prats at home showing off what they've got (in this case a f@ck off massive bird table) which seem popular in capitalism, we need competition, people clawing each others eyes out to hoard nature (instead of filthy lucre), it needs to be cutting edge and exciting, egos need to balloon in this environment (we have to be realistic that even in a post capitalist world we will still need space for narcissism) , it needs to be scandalous, we need to get to a point where a life list will get you the girl (or whatever you want). In short Nature needs to be 'God' in the increasing computer system controlled world that we inhabit, the algorithms need to be written to reward those who protect and enhance it and punish those who destroy it. Realistically it needs to be 'a God', in a deity trinity alongside consumer wealth and social capital - any future post capitalist society needs at least three main values/currencies in no particular order - Natural Capital, Economic Capital and Social Capital. We need natural capital currencies/metrics - this is the Emergency.
