Is Spain ready to bank on nature?

[xchrom]

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/16/inenglish/1381926018_429243.html


How much is a beech forest worth? Biodiversity banks are to be set up for Spanish habitats. / ANGELO GANDOLFI (CORDON PRESS)

Can you put a price tag on a beech grove? What about a prairie of Posidonia oceanica seagrass? How much money is a bee's pollination work worth? The Spanish government wants to encourage something called habitat banking, or biodiversity banking. It is a controversial concept because it allows developers to offset the environmental impact of their road, building or factory by purchasing an environmental recovery project elsewhere. Similar projects have been underway in the United States since the 1980s.

These banks would work like carbon emission markets, with the raw materials coming from nature. For now they will focus on habitats and species.

The system is as follows. On the one hand there are individuals or businesses who perform environmental work, such as reforesting a park, bringing an endangered species back from the brink, or cleaning up a contaminated lake. This work gets recorded in a register kept by the Environment Ministry, and a monetary value is assigned to it through credits. On the other hand, developers may purchase these credits on a voluntary basis to make up for damage wrought by their own activity.