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REWARDING BENEFITS THROUGH PAYMENTS AND MARKETS
countries, many of which cannot easily afford the
investments required. Significant and sustained
support from developed countries is needed to
underpin economic development without global
environmental impoverishment;
• importing primary commodities into developed
economies without internalising their full environmental
costs may be seen as exporting environmental
pressure to other countries. Alongside
continuing efforts to internalise environmental costs,
consistent with the polluter pays principle, mechanisms
to compensate or avoid negative environmental
impacts abroad could decrease pressure
and buy time to make the shift to more sustainable
production.
In addition to carbon sequestration and capture (see
Section 5.2.2 on the REDD mechanism), other global
contenders for IPES schemes include nitrogen deposition,
bioprospecting (see Section 5.3 below
on Access and Benefit Sharing), water and rainfall
regulation and global cultural services provided
by species and natural areas. These are all key
examples of locally provided ecosystem services with
far-reaching benefits.
Biodiversity provides additional global public benefits
in the form of non-use values. These can be
divided into option values, bequest value, existence
value and intrinsic value (see Chapter 4). Such values
are not limited to a specific region or country; many
have international values and some also global values.
Next to the global direct and indirect use values described
above, they are a fundamental reason for international
and intergovernmental cooperation to ensure
the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
In spatial terms, ecosystem use and provisioning
are unevenly distributed throughout the world.
This is the case for important use values (e.g. agricultural
harvests are more abundant in certain regions),
cultural values (e.g. charismatic species are found
only in certain locations), carbon storage (see Kapos
et al. 2008) and biodiversity-rich areas. This unequal
distribution is partly a consequence of past human
development paths and population movements and
partly due to natural endowments and climatic conditions.
Projected biodiversity loss is particularly high in developing
countries, many of which are burdened with other
priorities like combating poverty and providing education,
jobs and economic development (see Figure 5.9
for comparative maps of biodiversity risk areas and the
human development index). Developed economies have
a co-responsibility to protect global public goods by assisting
developing countries to conserve biodiversity. In
the short run, sustainable management and conservation
will not take place without significantly more investments
in the countries where the brunt of projected
biodiversity loss will take place.
Biodiversity’s role in the global economy is clearly
revealed by the interdependency of countries through regional
and international trade. Many countries import a
high proportion of their primary consumption products,
which ultimately derive from ecosystems. Ecosystem
services important for international production
should be managed on a long-term basis and protected
by appropriate laws. Environmental costs
should be internalised in the prices of products
that are traded internationally as well as nationally.
Green purchasing criteria, standards and public procurement
(see Sections 5.5 and 5.6) are examples of mechanisms
that can encourage exporters to internalise
environmental costs.
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TEEB FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY MAKERS - CHAPTER 5: PAGE 31