Nov 23, 2014—52.519° 13.365°

From Valuing Nature to Reclaiming Resources: Handbook

Humans, by overexploiting resources (known as “forcing”), have produced extensive changes in land use and have altered complex food webs, ecosystems, and habitats with, as a consequence, systematic biocapacity erosion, biodiversity loss, energy crises, pollution, and climate deregulation as well as displacement of human communities, wars, and local culture extinctions.11Monica Dittrich et al., Green Economies around the World? Implications of resource use for development and the environment. Vienna: SERI Report, 2012; Jonathan A. Foley et al., “Global consequences of land use,” Science, vol. 309, no. 5734 (2005): pp. 570–4; Jonathan A. Foley et al., “Solutions for a cultivated planet,” Nature, vol. 478, no. 7369 (2011): pp. 337‒42; Erle C. Ellis et al., “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000,” Global Ecology and Biogeography, vol. 19, no. 5 (2010): pp. 589‒606; Michel Griffon, “Nourrir la planète. Pour une révolution doublement verte,” in: Odile Jacob (ed.), Alternatives Economiques, no. 249 (2006); Daniel Pauly et al., “Fishing down marine food webs,”Science, vol. 279, no. 5352 (1998): pp. 860‒3, here p. 860. In other words, a global-resources “rush”22Ugo Bardi, The Limits to Growth Revisited. New York: Springer Verlag, 2011; Bardi, Extracted: how the quest for mineral wealth is plundering the planet. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014. has led to chronic socio-ecosystemic deficits, thus creating the conditions for local- and global-state shifts within the biosphere and/or society, with an unprecedented loss of resilience at all levels.33Anthony D. Barnosky et al., “Approaching a state shift in earth’s biosphere,” Nature, vol. 486, no. 7404 (2012): pp. 52‒8; Steven W. Running, “A measurable planetary boundary for the biosphere,” Science, vol. 337, no. 6101 (2012): pp. 1458‒9; Martin Ravillon et al., “New evidence on the urbanization of global poverty,” Population and Development Review, vol. 33, no. 4 (2007): pp. 667‒701. This is the “triumphant” Anthropocene landscape.

Therefore, critically and broadly questioning the Anthropocene goes hand in hand with valuing the nature process.44Sabine Höhler and Rafael Ziegler, “Nature’s accountability: stocks and stories,” Science as Culture: themed issue “Nature’s accountability,” vol. 19, no. 4 (2010): pp. 417‒30; Partha Dasgupta, “The place of nature in economic development,” in: Dani Rodrik and Mark Rosenzweig (eds.), Handbook of Development Economics 5. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2010, pp. 4039‒5061. This paper frames an argumentation exercise. Assessing our resources and permanently accounting for their usage and allocation are imperative to imagining and designing societies that are socio-ecosystemically resilient. A vision of a resource-centered “slow/soft” Anthropocene is emerging.

Socio-ecosystemic vulnerability =======∑R =========> Socio-ecosystemic resilience

This handbook argues that the process of valuing nature is a precondition to reclaiming resources.

1. Valuing nature in the Anthropocene: from terminology to meaning

The Anthropocene concept deserves particular attention because the underlying human‒nature relationship requires clarification.55Frank Oldfield et al., “The Anthropocene review: its significance, implications and rationale for a new transdisciplinary journal,” The Anthropocene Review, vol. 1 (2014): pp. 3‒7. The debate about whether the Anthropocene is a new unit of geological time, and other dimensions of the concept, is certainly going to remain open for quite some time to come, for at least two reasons.

1.1 The scientific and political statement

The Anthropocene debate is largely in the hands of the geologic/stratigraphic community.66Editorial, “All in good time,” Nature, vol. 519, no. 7542 (2015): pp. 129‒30. The community is conscious that “the Anthropocene is one order of magnitude more complicated than the stratigraphy,”77Jan Zalasiewicz, quoted in Richard Monastersky, “Anthropocene: the human age,” Nature, vol. 519, no. 7542 (2015): pp. 144‒7. but there is a risk that the stratigraphic debate could overshadow the contemporary socio-ecosystemic dimensions of the process. Rather than a geological force, humans act as a biospheric force: their activities affect primarily the “critical zone” (i.e. the surface)88The Earth’s critical zone is the “heterogeneous, near surface environment in which complex interactions involving rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms regulate the natural habitat and determine the availability of life-sustaining resources,” see online (accessed 11/01/2015). On July 24, 2006. NSF posted a solicitation for proposals for Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) within the Division of Earth Sciences. See online (accessed 11/01/2015). of the Earth system, where biological and geological cycles meet and where abiotic and biotic flows merge. This zone obviously marks the crossroads of critical boundaries. The planetary boundaries update99Will Steffen et al., “Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet,” Science, vol. 347, no. 6223 (2015): pp. 1259‒855. doi: org/10.1126/science.1259855. is trying to define a safe operating space for a sustainable humanity. While the geophysical and the chemical boundaries have been identified and quantified (typically in CO2 concentrations), the biological, ecosystemic components (i.e. genetic diversity and ecosystem functional diversity) remain poorly understood and remain poorly quantified.1010Ibid.

Understanding the meaning of “force” is to ask questions about the insidious, slow-risk effects of human forcings on the Earth’s critical zone through the hydro-, atmo-, and lithospheres, all combined. Ultimately, the planetary boundary framework1111Ibid. with its warning signs, thresholds, and regime shifts interdependently mobilizes biotic, abiotic, and social stressors.

1.2 The cultural and political essence of human planetary power

Humans also act as a “social/political force,” amplifying or accelerating (and possibly slowing down) the described environmental trends. The Anthropocene can be considered as a recent technology-, demographic-, and overconsumption-driven state of mind, a kind of “low-cost human‒nature” culture.

Can this state of mind be challenged? Yes, it can, because, the “future being no longer what it used to be” (a phrase attributed to Laura Riding and Robert Graves), the sequence of human history—from nature as gift (the “laborious” early Anthropocene) to nature as debt (the “triumphant”, Great Acceleration stage) and back to nature as gift (the “slow/soft” Anthropocene)—makes sense.

2. Organizational patterns and considerations
of resilience/vulnerability on ecosystems and society

To further articulate the statements made above on forcings, on biospheric debt (the breaking of the species contract),1212Michel Serres, “The natural contract,” Critical Inquiry, vol. 19, no. 1 (1992): pp. 1‒21, online (accessed 11/02/15). and on social debt (the breaking of the social contract), Table 1 considers the ecosystem in socioeconomic terms in an attempt to build a common matrix for integrating the economy within the physical limits of the biosphere.

Table 1. Organizational and functional trends in eco- and social systems. The organizational conflict between the two systems is explored to pinpoint why there is a need to reframe the human‒nature relationship.1313See also Christope Honet and Ioan Negrutiu, “De l’agriculture comme problème à l’agriculture comme solution: des plantes et des homes,” in William Dross (ed.), Le végétal saisi par le droit. Brussels: Bruylant, 2012. The content of the table is explicated in the subsequent paragraphs.

HANPP is the “difference between the amount of NPP that would be available in an ecosystem in the absence of human activities (NPP0) and the amount of NPP which actually remains in the ecosystem, or in the ecosystem that replaced it under current management practices (NPPt).”²

Notes to table:

See Gretchen C. Daily and Paul R. Ehrlich “Population, sustainability, and earth’s carrying capacity: a framework for estimating population sizes and lifestyles that could be sustained without undermining future generations,” BioScience, vol. 42, no. 10 (1992): pp. 761‒71, online (accessed 11/11/2015).
Quoted from Helmut Haberl, et al., “Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production,” PNAS, vol. 104, no. 39 (2007): pp. 12942‒7.

In the ecosystem economy, primary producers generate Net Primary Production (NPP) through photosynthesis. Note that the average rate of photosynthesis is below 2 percent of the incident solar radiation. This parameter sets the productivity limits of the biosphere1414Stève de Bosseoreille de Ribou et al., “Plant science and agricultural productivity: why are we hitting the yield ceiling?,” Plant Science, vol. 210 (2013): pp. 159–76. (and those of most human activities). Accordingly, 50 percent of NPP is directly recycled by the system for self-maintenance (functions, cycles). “Flower Power” signifies that flowering plants are the major biomass producers on land and thus in agriculture.

The ecosystem economy is circular (no waste) and follows cycles and rhythms determined by solar and geophysical systems. Competition in ecosystems is subtle and bridled by a (near) real-time “taxation” system with multifunction agents organized in food networks. Under stable conditions, the ecosystem economy generates an ecological reserve, a kind of insurance mechanism and resilience stock, against potential disorders or stresses. Within nature, a resilient and sustainable “economy” is the rule. Resilient ecosystems are productive, biologically diverse, and energetically efficient. Their resilience, built up over millions of years of evolution in diverse climates, relies mainly on the presence of diverse and often redundant actors. However, ecosystem services are not infinitely substitutable, in particular when combined stressful conditions altering critical planetary boundaries occur within a short timescale.

The human economy is linear and captures approximately 35 percent of NPP through agriculture and other human activities1515See also Navin Ramankutty et al., “Farming the planet: 1. Geographic distribution of global agricultural lands in the year 2000,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles, vol. 22, art. no. GB1003 (2008): pp. 1‒19. as well as through other factors that generate negative externalities. The remaining 15 percent of NPP is used to feed the food networks, i.e. biodiversity that is thriving on NPP. The immediate consequences of such a skewed distribution can be seen in the difficulty of preserving biodiversity nowadays. This problem will not disappear in the immediate future, because the human population continues to grow at a fast pace. Manifestations of human systemic forcings on the natural capital include soil degradation, desertification, Earth Overshoot Day, continuous warfare around resources, etc. Similarly, an example of forcing in human capital is social inequities, with particular emphasis on political determinants, such as those revealed by public health governance degradation1616Ole Petter Ottersen et al., “The political origins of health inequity: prospects for change,” The Lancet, vol. 383 (2014): pp. 630‒67; David Stuckler and Karen Siegel (eds.), Sick Societies: responding to the global challenge of chronic disease. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. and derived global risks.1717Jan Willem Erisman et al., “Global change: put people at the centre of global risk management,” Nature, vol. 519, no. 7542 (2015): pp. 151‒3.

Humans take the narrow view of competition processes, the consequence being systemic environmental and social dumping, which generate socio-ecosystemic deficits and debts. Therefore, the free-market economy is subsidized, meaning that the foundations of the dominant economic theory and practice are essentially wrong.1818Dasgupta, “The place of nature in economic development.” Beyond competition, economic efficiency needs to incorporate the entire value of natural and social capital to achieve true (re)allocation efficiency, i.e. the inclusion of all resources that affect human well-being.1919Robert Costanza, “Stewardship for a ‘full’ world,” Current History, vol. 107, no. 705 (2008): pp. 30‒5. In other words, humanity needs to reposition itself into, not outside, the ecosystem.

Take, now, two economies under real-life stress tests: the ecosystem “economy” has generally a broader and larger spectrum of responses and adaptive capabilities to diverse stressors when compared with social systems. For example, early warnings of social tensions have already begun with respect to access to food, water, and land, rather than energy.2020François Collart Dutilleul, “Le végétal et la sécurité alimentaire: approche juridique internationale,” in: William Dross (ed.), Le végétal saisi par le droit. Brussels: Bruylant, 2012, pp. 47‒64; Final project report of the “Foresight global food and farming futures project,” The Future of Food and Farming: challenges and choices for global sustainability. London: Government Office for Science, 2011, online (accessed 11/01/15); Steve Banwart, “Save our soils,” Nature, vol. 474, no. 7350 (2011): pp. 151‒2; Foley et al., “Global consequences”; Foley et al., “Solutions for a cultivated planet”; Annette Freibauer et al., “Sustainable food consumption and production in a resource-constrained world,” in: A. Freibauer, SCAR 3rd Foresight Exercise. Brussels: Publications Office of the European Union; and see online (accessed 11/01/15); Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Mesfin M. Mekonnen, “The water footprint of humanity,” PNAS, vol. 109, no. 9 (2011): pp. 3233‒7; Charles J. Godfray et al., “Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people,” Science, vol. 327, no. 5967 (2010): pp. 812‒18; Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: rescuing a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble. Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 2006.

3. Clichés and inconsistencies in science
and political and diplomatic agendas

The Anthropocene debate and the considerations outlined above shed light on a series of inconsistencies addressed by agendas at present.

3.1 The sixth extinction and saving nature

A clear distinction is required between biodiversity erosion and mass extinction processes.2121Anthony D. Barnosky et al., “Has the earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?,” Nature, vol. 471, no. 7336 (2011): pp. 51‒7; Michael Hoffmann et al., “The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates,” Science, vol. 330, no. 6010 (2010): pp. 1503‒9. doi: 10.1126/science. 1194442. It is a matter of magnitude (and timescale): extinctions concern a large percentage of species, in the range of 60‒95 percent.2222Barnosky et al., “Has the earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?” Estimated extinction risk rates at present are 2.8 percent.2323Mark C. Urban, “Accelerating extinction risk from climate change,” Science, vol. 348, no. 6234 (2015): pp. 571‒3. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa4984. Therefore, humans are at the stage of accelerating biodiversity erosion. Concerning “saving nature,” this is a childish assertion, arguments against which can be found in Table 1.

3.2 Climate change and biodiversity-loss dilemmas

These two challenges are high on the agendas of recent years and perfectly illustrate the paradox of “institutional success and environmental degradation.”2424Tancrède Voituriez, “Three commitments governments should take on to make sustainable development goals the drivers of a major transformation,” IDDRI Issue Brief (Governance), no. 3 (2015): pp. 1‒4. This is not surprising. The climate issue is “too big to fail”; the increasing economic risks for businesses dominate over concerns for social welfare and poverty,2525See Mart A. Stewart, “Swapping air, trading places: carbon exchange, climate change policy, and naturalizing markets,” Radical History Review, vol. 107 (2010): pp. 25‒43. Note that Coral Davenport of the International New York Times (January 24, 2014) writes that the World Bank considers “global warming (as) the chief contributor to rising global poverty rates and falling GDP in developing nations.” At the same time, Davenport quotes in her article just cited, titled “Businesses add costs of climate to bottom line; executives discovering that the risk of inaction is too great to ignore,” that OECD leaders admit that climate change is increasingly costly for the business community because of increasing economic risks. There are reasons to believe that the business community as well as concerned financial institutions (see the 44th Davos Forum, 2014) can find solutions and will mitigate the impact of climate change on their activities. Are the Davos solutions going to ease poverty rates and falling GDPs? Unlikely, but research should be engaged along these lines, because mitigation of climate change cannot be separated from Millennium Development Goals. the political mood having switched from mitigation to adaptation. The “psychological climate paradox” is another illustration: it refers to the “growing discrepancy between the increasing scientific certainty about anthropogenic interference with the climate system and the decreasing popular concern and support for strong climate policies.”2626Per Espen Stocknes, “Rethinking climate communications and the ‘psychological climate paradox,’” Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 1 (2014): pp. 161–70. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2014.03.007. Biodiversity, in turn, a main component of resources, is not easily measured or valued when it comes to indicators monitoring the dynamics of genetic and species diversity2727Rodolfo Dirzo et al., “Defaunation in the Anthropocene,” Science, vol. 345, no. 6195 (2014): pp. 401‒6. doi: 10.1126/science.1251817; Maria Dornelas et al., “Assemblage time series reveal biodiversity change but not systematic loss,” Science, vol. 344, no. 6181 (2014): pp. 296‒9. doi: 10.1126/science.1248484; Chris D. Thomas, “Local diversity stays about the same, regional diversity increases, and global diversity declines,” PNAS, vol. 110, no. 48 (2013): pp. 19187‒8; Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis et al., Approche économique de la biodiversité et des services liés aux écosystèmes ‒ Contribution à la décision publique. Paris: La Documentation Française, Centre d’Analyse Stratégique, 2009. and on that basis making coherent choices of essential biodiversity variables (EBV). Importantly, biodiversity erosion has a direct impact on ecosystem functioning, cycles, and services.2828Dirzo et al., “Defaunation in the Anthropocene.”

Of note is that climate and biodiversity are slow, insidious risks. Both indirectly express the condition of structured entities such as food networks, habitats, landscapes, and ecosystems, with their respective functions and services. The life component (the critical zone) of the Earth system contributes the major and daily buffering capacity to physicochemical processes of the system,2929Victor G. Gorshkov et al., “Revising the fundamentals of ecological knowledge: the biota–environment interaction,” Ecological Complexity, vol. 1, no. 1 (2004): pp. 17–36. such as the climate. The HANPP is a good example (see Table 1). The high levels of human appropriation are the primary cause of substantial changes in species abundance, distribution, and interaction; these are due in the main to habitat loss and degradation, land use, and climate change.3030Urban, “Accelerating extinction risk from climate change”; see also Barnosky et al., “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere.” Present levels of estimated extinction rates (2.8 percent) are expected to increase with climate change to approximately 5 percent (scenario + 2°C) and to approximately 16 percent (one species out of six; scenario + 4°C).3131Urban, “Accelerating extinction risk from climate change.” Predicted extinctions from climate change are higher risk for South America (23 percent), Australia and New Zealand (14 percent), and lower risk for North America and Europe (5‒6 percent). Endemic species, amphibians, and reptiles score highest for susceptibility to extinction.

3.3 Trajectories of demography and hyper-urbanization (so far largely a “slamization” process)

Future projections to 2050 predict the human population at 9 billion and shortages of land, energy, water, fish, etc. For governance and finance, this is politically safe and technologically open. However, recent updates of scenarios from the 1972 publication The Limits to Growth3232Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: the 30-year update. London: Earthscan, Bath Press, 2005; Bardi, “The Limits to Growth Revisited”; Graham M. Turner, “A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality,” Global Environmental Change, vol. 18, no. 3 (2008): pp. 397–411. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.05.001. as well as the “scientists’ consensus initiative”3333Anthony D. Barnosky et al., “The scientists consensus statement on ‘Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support Systems in the 21st Century,’” Consensus for Action, 2013, online (accessed 11/02/2015). use 2020‒30 as the critical time boundary. These studies should ring the bell for state shifts in a range of economic, environmental, and human variables, because if this is so, then the prospect of 9 billion humans3434Agenda 21, the Rio Conference in 1992, Chapter 5: “Demographic dynamics and sustainability.” Brussels: UN Documents Cooperation Circles, 2009. Peter Turchin, “Long-term population cycles in human societies,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, no. 1162 (2009): pp. 1–17. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04447.x; Robert Engelman, “An end to population growth: why family planning is key to a sustainable future,” Solutions, vol. 2, no. 3 (2011), online; and see the Global Footprint Network, see online (accessed 11/02/15). and hypertrophied urban growth3535Sybil P. Seitzinger et al., “Planetary stewardship in an urbanizing world: beyond city limits,” AMBIO, vol. 41, no. 8 (2012): pp. 787‒94. doi: 10.1007/s13280-012-0353-7. becomes highly hypothetical; we can think again about land-use management and global resource issues.

3.4 Decarbonizing the economy and high-tech solutions to most ills

So far, a very slow shift from fossil fuels to a green low-carbon economy is underway.3636Bardi, Extracted; Philippe Bihouix, L’âge low tech. Vers une civilisation techniquement soutenable. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2014. The decarbonized economy is not yet in sight. It is notable that while technological innovations occupy dominant agendas, we seem rather short on social innovations.3737Olivier De Schutter, The EU’s Fifth Project: transitional governance in the service of sustainable societies. The Francqui International Conference 2014. Brussels, Palais des Académies, May 8‒9, 2014, online. One explanation for this stems from the fact that capitalism thrives on crises, giving the illusion of win–win scenarios;3838Sian Sullivan, “Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service provider,” Radical Anthropology, vol. 3 (2009): pp. 18‒27; Stewart, “Swapping air, trading places”. this is particularly perceptible with both climate change (“carbon colonialism”) and biodiversity agendas.

4. Reframing and reclaiming resources

To best address the above issues, and to imagine trajectories to sustainable societies that reduce and finally eliminate socio-ecosystemic debts, we argue that the resource concept constitutes a unifying theme, a first order “leverage point” for systemic change.3939Donna Meadows, quoted in Bardi, Extracted.

What really keeps humans running? Resources, what else?4040Ioan Negrutiu, “Interdisciplinarity for the long-term: targeting resources,” in: Ioan Negrutiu et al. (eds.), Les ressources. St. Etienne: PUSE, Les colloques de l’Institut universitaire de France, 2011, pp. 327‒37. The permanent adjustment of resources, in terms of production, access, and allocation, is at the heart of geopolitics and major conflicts throughout history.4141Kattalin Gabriel-Oyhamburu, “Le retour d’une géopolitique des ressources?,” L’espace politique, vol. 12 (2010), online (accessed 11/02/2015); Laurent Goetschel and Didier Péclard, “Les conflits liés aux ressources naturelles. Résultats de recherches et perspectives,” Annuaire suisse de politique de développement, vol. 25, no. 2 (2006): pp. 95‒106, online (accessed 11/02/2015); Eric Neumayer, “Scarce or abundant? The economy of natural resources availability,” Journal of Economic Surveys, vol. 14, no. 3 (2000): pp. 307‒29. Human history is reflected in the geohistory of natural resources.4242Bardi, Extracted; Partha Dasgupta, The Control of Resources. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 240. At the turning point of the Second World War, the Atlantic Charter (1941), under the leadership of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill (not to mention the economist John Maynard Keynes, and the ensuing conferences), stated that a secure world requires coherent, coordinated, and inclusive understanding of food/land, labor, and financial issues.4343François Collart Dutilleul, “Les enjeux alimentaires du commerce des ressources naturelles,” in: Ioan Negrutiu et al. (eds.), Les ressources. St. Etienne: PUSE, Les colloques de l’Institut universitaire de France, 2011, pp. 63‒80. Table 1 shows that such a comprehensive view has vanished. According to today’s political agendas, the resource issue is, at best, a global yet cryptic challenge.

Reframing and reclaiming the resource system is a powerful approach, because it opens up a broad range of options and strategies to engage in the transition to sustainable paths. It offers a new perspective for reasons that allow and instruments that permit a value on nature, and challenges the socio-ecosystemic debt culture altogether. It clarifies the whys and the hows of addressing power asymmetries in the first place.4444Ottersen et al., “The political origins of health inequity.” It documents the capacity of the state to ensure, for example, food, health, and environmental security to human populations.

5. Resource-centered transitions

Addressing the triple dumping issue (see Table 1) and providing solutions to achieve “debt zero” is certainly the most challenging endeavor of our times. By intellectually reclaiming the resource field, by founding an academic “United State of Resources,”4545See the Michel Serres Institute for Resources and Public Goods, online (accessed 11/02/15). novel frames of values and instruments are imaginable or open to (re)consideration.

5.1 Values and principles guiding socio-ecosystemic resilient societies

To target “zero debt,” a triple set of universal principles best illustrates the ambition of the task: social justice (equity), environmental responsibility, and cultural acceptance. Within this frame, upgrading and integrating the Millennium Development Goals and subsequent post-2015 objectives (targeting health, food, education, and environment) become feasible: these principles compose the new cultural code of sustainability and resilience.

5.2 From values to instruments and tools

Developing new environmental accounting tools and instruments, which ensure decision-makers are accountable to society, is consistent with translating the said principles into real life. In our increasingly complex world, such tools would help politicians manage the long term and accomplish social cohesion in societies driven by short-term individualistic concerns. The expected result would be responsible resource consumption through ecologically adequate lifestyles.

5.2.1 Legal instruments

Such instruments are paramount when addressing the Anthropocene challenge—the re-adjustment and re-allocation of resources according to individual and collective fundamental needs and rights, property rights and the commons (value of use versus property), and environmental law.4646Marcella Caballos Medina and Olivier Petit, “Conflicting rights and interests in indigenous territories. The implications of exploitation and conservation of natural resources,” in: Carmen Maganda and Oliver Petit (eds.), Strategic Natural Resource Governance. Contemporary environmental perspectives, vol. 10. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, Regional Integration and Social Cohesion, 2012, pp. 19‒50.

Considering the fundamental needs of humans, these are physiological, social, and security- and dignity-linked.4747Robert Costanza et al., “An integrative approach to quality of life measurement, research, and policy,” S.A.P.I.E.N.S., vol. 1, no. 1 (2008): pp. 1‒9; Abraham Maslow, Être humain: la nature humaine et sa plénitude. Paris: Eyrolles, 2006, p. 432. Human need evolves through social norms and policy decisions, but the basics have been analyzed in detail already.4848Costanza et al., “An integrative approach,” and references therein. Concerning human rights, we refer to the 2014 Yale conference “Human Rights, Environmental Sustainability, Post-2015 Development, and the Future Climate Regime” and “COP 21,” both of which perfectly illustrate the fact that humans, the environment, and development are indivisible categories when it comes to sustainability.

Last but equally important, legal studies can make a unique contribution to creating the matrix of strategic resource governance,4949Maganda and Petit (eds.), Strategic Natural Resource Governance. Contemporary environmental perspectives, vol. 10. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, Regional Integration and Social Cohesion, 2012, p. 241. in challenging the socially constructed nature of food as a private good,5050For example, de-commodifying food, food as a commons, see Jose Luis Vivero Pol, “Transition towards a food commons regime: re-commoning food to crowd-feed the world,” online (accessed 11/02/2015). or in building the Earth system as a new and whole epistemic object composed of tangible and intangible parts.5151The Lascaux Program, see François Collart Dutilleul and Thomas Bréger (eds.),Penser une démocratie alimentaire / Thinking a food democracy: Propositions Lascaux entre ressources naturelles et besoins alimentaires / Lascaux proposals between natural resources and food needs. San José, Costa Rica: Inida, 2014, vol. 2, p. 504, open access online (accessed 11/02/2015).

5.2.2 Monitoring and accounting tools

The economy is not yet accountable for nature’s degradation.5252Nick Hanley, “Pricing the planet,” Nature, vol. 520, no. 7548 (2015): pp. 434‒5; Dieter Helm, Natural Capital: valuing the planet. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015; Jean-Louis Weber, Ecosystem Natural Capital Accounts: a quick start package for implementing Aichi Biodiversity Target 2 on integration of biodiversity values in national accounting systems in the context of the SEEA experimental ecosystem accounts. Montréal, Québec: Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), online (accessed 11/02/2015); Dasgupta, “The place of nature in economic development”; Dittrich et al., “Implications of resource use”; Inge Røpke, “The early history of modern ecological economics,” Ecological Economics, vol. 50 (2004): pp. 293‒314; Robert Costanza, “Changing visions of humans’ place in the world and the need for an ecological economics,” in: Edward Fullbrook (ed.), A Guide to What’s Wrong with Economics. London and New York: Anthem Press, 2004, pp. 237‒46. No national, regional, or local government or company keeps ecological balance sheets. Consuming ecosystem capital (i.e. loss of ecosystem capability) without accounting for it is equivalent to creating ecological debt to pass on (to present and future generations, locally or through imported products)5353Thata. U. Srinivasan et al., “The debt of nations and the distribution of ecological impacts from human activities,” PNAS, vol. 105 (2008): pp. 1768‒73; Jean-Louis Weber et al., “A natural resource-systems approach: targeting the ecological transition at the regional scale, 143-168,” in: Collart Dutilleul and Bréger (eds.), Penser une démocratie alimentaire / Thinking a food democracy, p. 504.. Estimates are based on observable costs of management and restoration/rehabilitation (of land and soil, forests, water sources, rivers, or biodiversity) and the consumption of ecosystem capital, which is used and not paid for, embedded in international transactions.

Presently such accounts increasingly benefit from big data systems, which allow for the continuous monitoring of state change and variation, through Earth monitoring by satellite programs, in situ monitoring systems, and fast processing of socioeconomic statistics. In other words, (near) real-time monitoring and accounting tools are becoming accessible at various territorial scales. For example, to measure the capacity of ecosystem production and servicing in a given territory an ecosystem capability accounting tool was developed,5454Weber, Ecosystem Natural Capital Accounts. presented, and discussed at the “Valuing Nature” session during the Anthropocene Campus at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

Technically, on the reference land-use matrix, monitoring of the productive capacity and footprints of (biological) resources is undertaken in order to estimate:

Carbon/biomass account(s) (as stocks, flows, supply, use);
Water account(s);
Green services infrastructure accounts, including:
- The green landscape index (urban, agriculture, forest, natural habitats);
- Natural protected zones (such as “Natura 2000’s” blue and green zones);
- Fragmentation index (road and railway networks, dams, etc.). Together, these represent the Landscape Ecosystem Potential (LEP).

Accessible basic resources, as annual net-stocks and fluxes—consideration of issues of quality, timeliness, and randomness.

The advantages and further developments of the proposed method are:

Revealing the dual aspect of natural capital, as long as:
- Ecosystem assets are suppliers of goods used for final consumption; and
- Capital that reproduces such goods is degradable in case of excessive exploitation.

Allowing translation of debt and risk concepts into versatile metrics; to operate with the aid of restoration/compensation-equivalent values.
Identifying the causes of ecosystem/natural-capital degradation (stress factors) and the corresponding liabilities of economic sectors and agents or of the community itself (e.g. in the case of land-planning impacts).
Demonstrating the need for high-quality data as well as access to various public data sources, in order to foster scientifically sound and verifiable measurements that, in turn, are prone to supporting effective policy measures.
Identifying the improvements required in both public and private accounting standards for measuring the management behavior of and liability to natural capital.

6. Conclusion

Reframing the Anthropocene by shifting towards a “slow/soft” Anthropocene, yet, is of remote concern in most spheres of human activity. However, we argue that there is no alternative to putting the economy within the limits of the biosphere. This requires a drastic change in our relationship to nature: from balance OF nature to balance WITH nature.5555Daniel Simberloff, “The ‘Balance of Nature’—evolution of a panchreston,” PLoS Biol, vol. 12, no. 10 (2014): e1001963. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001963.

Valuing nature can greatly contribute to this change, but the notion remains one of political wishful thinking unless the driving values of a sustainable humanity are implemented convincingly and jointly within society.

Environmental responsibility starts with the proper quantifying of the human impact on ecosystems and using these metrics of nature valuation to preserve high-quality life-supporting systems in the long term. This is perfectly feasible, because quantitative and modeling tools are more readily available than ever before.

Social justice starts with the reframing and the rebalancing of the current political determinants of socioeconomic and environmental power asymmetries in various layers and sectors of society. Ultimately, the synergic effects of the two values will end up with the equitable allocation of accessible resources within society and, last but not least, with a collective ambition to rethink and reclaim the commons.

The Berlin case study chosen for the “Valuing Nature” session, the “zero-debt” exercise (see the pair of practicals), and discussions during the sessions indicated that society is not yet ready for such a “cultural shift.” In particular, the appropriation of “value” and “valuing,” the ideas and processes of valuing versus pricing nature,5656Hanley, “Pricing the planet.” have met with reluctance. One may predict that increased resource scarcity will inevitably change this view and stimulate research into alternative scenarios.

The Anthropocene Campus cannot remain a single-shot experiment, therefore, and is here to stay, to experiment with ideas about the Anthropocene and search for reframing narratives: the narratives of the “Age of Man” (already coined by Buffon in 1784) and more likely the narratives of the “Age of Mankind.”

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