In 2020, the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report said that there was an average 68% fall in mammal, bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian populations since 1970, with much of this loss caused by habitat destruction.
A particular problem with protecting species is that there is no standardized method of quantifying the value of different species, which can create an impression that they’re worthless. This can lead people to prioritize economic activity over biodiversity protection.
Valuing nature
Research from Estonia’s University of Tartu suggests a means of valuing biodiversity that would underpin a kind of species stock market (SSM) that would provide instantaneous valuations for species. While the valuation aspect of the mechanism would resemble a stock market, things like ownership, trading, and transactions will be fundamentally different.
Obviously, species don’t have owners, so any trade won’t be about transferring ownership rights but rather processes that erase species from particular areas due to things such as war, pollution, or deforestation.
“The SSM would be able to put a price tag on such transactions, and the price could be thought of as an invoice that the seller needs to settle in some way that benefits global biodiversity,” the researchers explain.
Benefiting biodiversity
By contrast, any actions that could benefit biodiversity would be akin to buying stocks on the exchange. Buying stocks will have a price tag, but the researchers believe this should be thought of more in goodwill terms, with any “money” involved representing an investment towards protecting biodiversity.
“By rooting such actions in a unified valuation system it is hoped that goodwill actions will become increasingly difficult to dodge and dismiss,” the authors continue.
At the heart of the SSM is the notion of “digital species”, which covers both described and undescribed species that are believed to exist based on DNA sequences. These are elaborated on by the various information known about each species’ habitat, distribution, and interactions.
This data would be sourced from a range of global scientific and societal resources, including from sequence databases, natural history collections, and life science data portals. Each digital species could be managed by incorporating data from non-sequenced individuals via observations, data from publications, and older material from collections.
“Non-trivial complications are foreseen when implementing the SSM in practice, but we argue that the most realistic and tangible way out of the looming biodiversity crisis is to put a price tag on species and thereby a cost to actions that compromise them,” the researchers conclude.
“No human being will make direct monetary profit out of the SSM, and yet it’s all Earth’s inhabitants—including humans—that could benefit from its pointers.”
