Valuing the long-beaked echidna

The Economist (Feb. 22, 2014) author of the “free exchange” column writes about valuing nature.   

“Establishing the value of these goods is tricky, but there are ways of going about it.  First, if an ecosystem service has an output—such as pollinated crops—then it is often possible to work out the value of the input.  On that basis, a study by academics at Cornell University estimated that bees and other insects contributed $29 billion to the American economy in 2010.  Second, if market prices are affected by nature, a value can be derived from them.  Thus an apartment in New York with a view of Central Park is worth considerably more than one without such a view.  Third, people’s behavior—for instance the costs they are prepared to bear to visit a national park—reveals the value that they place on unpriced goods.”

“Some of the numbers derived from these methods are distinctly dodgy, but conservationists argue, fairly reasonably, that it is better to have mediocre estimates than none at all.”