landyield.com | Pavan Sukhdev : “Il faut donner un prix à la biodiversité” (Le Monde)

Magazine about Agriculture in Brazil

Climate Change

Pavan Sukhdev : “Il faut donner un prix à la biodiversité” (Le Monde)

By Diogo Shimizu Lima ⋅ June 30, 2008 ⋅

Original here, Portuguese translation here. Although not related directly to the past few posts I have made (agriculture and biofuels in Brazil), it has a close relation to my object of studies (agriculture in Brazil). Therefore, I am blogging.

Não se trata de frear o desenvolvimento a que diversos países aspiram, mas devemos ter consciência das conseqüências de certas opções. O custo do desmatamento não se limita às perdas de receitas da exploração florestal. Acrescentando o desaparecimento dos recursos genéticos explorados pela medicina e o papel crucial que a floresta tem na regulação do clima, na distribuição de água, na prevenção das inundações e da erosão… o custo chega a centenas de bilhões de dólares. É preciso dar um preço à natureza para poder protegê-la.

Just for the title, “It is necessary to put a price on biodiversity”, it was already worth reading the article.

From that one little quote mr. Pavan Sukhdev already told us why the Kyoto Protocol works: because of the money generated from the carbon credit market. This is the key: a market was created and it is worth money to protect nature. Although I do agree that it is a lovely concept to protect nature and biodiversity, I also strongly believe that people need benefits to do certain things.

So, why don’t make the biodiversity valuable? For instance, if research can be developed from plants that we don’t even know they exist, then this should be worth something. If it is worth something, then it should be protected and taken care of. As simple as that.