What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?

Tony Juniper is one of Britain's best-known environmentalists, a former director of Friends of the Earth and one of the co-authors of Harmony by HRH the Prince of Wales, who writes a long and passionate foreword to this book. It is obvious to those who have thought deeply about the issue that we need to revise our attitude towards and understanding of Nature. Our present attitude is exploitative and manipulative based on the separation of humans from Nature and an attempt on our part to subjugate it and use it exclusively for our own ends. This goes back to the mechanistic understanding of the 17th century, which has also been translated into economics and still dominates biology. With this background one can understand that economists have started to think about the value of the services provided by Nature that actually underpin our economic activity. Some estimates put the value of these services at $100 trillion, twice the global GDP.

The book is based mainly on Tony's own experiences and research of best practice to offset destructive human activities in various environmental domains. There is no bibliography and some parallels that might have been made, for instance with the eco-economy proposed by Lester Brown, are not mentioned. Instead, Tony proposes his own model of a bioeconomy, which amounts to the same thing. Each chapter begins with a few striking statistics, of which the following is a sample: one third – farmed soil degraded since the mid-20th century; €70 billion – annual cost of nitrogen pollution in Europe; larger than Germany – area of forest cleared 2000-2010; $1 trillion – annual sales dependent on animal pollination; $50 billion – extra value that could be gained from well-managed fish stocks; over 50% – proportion of oxygen produced by plankton; $6.6 trillion – annual global environmental damage caused by human activities (11% of world GDP); $34 billion – costs associated with the loss of vultures in India.

This last figure is one of the most interesting cited, and is an excellent example of an unpredictable systemic effects with far reaching implications. In 1993, there were around 40 million vultures in India, but by 2007 the population of the two lane species has dropped by 99.9% and 97% respectively. The cause was an anti-inflammatory drug with the usual unpronounceable pharmacological name – diclofenac. It turned out that its dramatic beneficial effects on sick animals made the drug very popular but if these animals were treated only a few days before their death, traces remained in their bodies, which were then eaten by the vultures. This poisoned them in large numbers as many vultures feed on a single carcass. Needless to say, carcasses left out to putrefy in the sun of health hazard. In addition, the Parsi community was no longer able to leave their dead bodies out for the vultures and had to invest in expensive new technology. In the early 1990s, these vultures were consuming about 12 million tonnes of meat a year, which it was calculated would feed an additional 4 to 7 million dogs. This seems to have been what happened, and these feral dogs also carry diseases, not to mention an extra 40 million dog bites because of this increase in numbers and also around 48,000 additional deaths from rabies in the period 1992-2006. All in all, the cost of the loss of the vultures is estimated at $34 billion.

At the beginning of the book, Tony explains the Biosphere 2 experiment where a small group of people were able to live inside a sealed off habitat for two years. They discovered a great deal in the process, especially close linkages between the various natural systems. We need to remember that the Earth is similarly a sealed off habitat. The individual chapters consider soil, light and photosynthesis, eco-innovation, pollination, natural pest control, water, the seas, then Nature as a form of insurance and as a natural health service. As well as pointing out critical issues, Tony gives many examples of encouraging initiatives that are moving in the right direction. Among these are wetlands being managed as sewage treatment facilities, the creation of marine reserves and the protection of coal reefs and the maintenance of mangroves to contain storm surges. In the last chapter, Tony looks at the prevailing model of Nature whereby the liquidation of natural capital is treated as a stream of dividends rather than spending of capital. Some readers may know of Earth Overshoot Day where human consumption of renewable natural resources exceeds supply – this now happens at the end of August. In other words our consumption is unsustainable in the long-term. This is a reflection of a more endemic problem, namely short termism, both political and economic. One CEO is quoted as saying in relation to his interests in land and forests that 'natural resources are limited, and I need to take them before they're gone.' This represents an ecological version of a Ponzi scheme. Although many people are quoted as saying that business as usual is not an option, this is precisely what we are doing.

His answer, referred to above, is a bioeconomy, which Tony has been promoting to companies for some years. Perhaps the most encouraging example of a country reorienting itself is Costa Rica, which has reversed its deforestation and become a major magnet of ecotourism, enhancing its GDP per capita in the process. Tony feels, quite rightly, that religions can play a significant role in changing attitudes and realising that nature is 'the source of essential services: a provider of insurance, a controller of disease, a waste recycler, an essential part of health provision, a water utility, a controller or pests, a massive carbon capture and storage system and as the ultimate converter of solar energy.' Eventually, we will have to live within the overall natural resources available, but it would be sensible, as this readable and hugely informative book suggests, to move consciously in this direction sooner rather than later.