13b Ecosystem Acctg for the Forest & Terrestrial Resources

• Flows in the National Accounts

  Usual concerns of System of National Accounts:

  • Flows among economic actors
  • Measurement of production and income, gross and net terms
• Flows in the National Accounts

  • Countries
  • National economy and rest of the world (imports & exports
  • Territory and residence
• Opening and closing extent

  • ecosystem assets for a given ecosystem type; beginning and end of an accounting period, generally one year.
• Additions to extent

  • Managed expansion – e.g., conversion of forests into agricultural land or land reclamation work in coastal areas; reforestation of agricultural areas.
  • Unmanaged/Natural expansion – e.g., seeding, sprouting, suckering or layering; effects of climate change, or result from abandonment of land by people
  • Upward reappraisal – positive changes due to updated information that permits a reassessment of the size of the area
• Reductions to extent

  • Managed reduction – e.g., cases where the activity may be illegal; deforestation and increases in urban areas.
  • Unmanaged reduction – e.g., loss of coral reefs due to the effects of climate change, or result from abandonment of land by people
  • Downward reappraisal – negative version of the above
• “Greening” the National Accounts: Filling critical gaps for Natural Capital

  1. Missing natural capital (before SEEA 2012)
  2. Invisible natural capital
• Missing natural capital (before SEEA 2012)

  Asset values for fisheries, water, some minerals:

  • constructing physical accounts on natural resource stocks and flows
  • valuing stocks and flows based on market transactions
  • estimating of natural resource depletion, depreciation
• Nature-based goods that were underestimated because of poor data, such as traditional fishing, non-timber forest products, collected water
• Invisible natural capital

  • The value of ecosystem services may already be in the SNA but are implicit or wrongly attributed to other sectors.
  • Forests protecting watersheds thereby contributing to water for agriculture, hydropower, freshwater fishery and households
  • Mangroves serving as natural infrastructure that protects aquaculture businesses and settlements from wind and storm surge
• Valuation in An Accounting Concept

  A) market

  B) marginal

  C) public sector

  
• Welfare versus Market Values

  A) Welfare

  B) cost-benefit

  
• Measuring Value: Market Prices

  • National accounts record the value of production (in the production account).
  • Value added is the value created by production
  • Gross value added: the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption (GDP)
  • Net value added : the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption and consumption of fixed capital (‘depreciation’). (NDP)
  • Outputs are valued at basic prices (if not available: producer’s prices), intermediate inputs are valued at purchaser’s prices.
  • Note that production for home consumption is within the SNA production boundary
• Principle in SNA (2008): Public goods (e.g. education) are valued at cost. I.e. as the sum of:

  • Intermediate consumption
  • Compensation of employees
  • Consumption of fixed capital
  • Other taxes (less subsidies) on production
• Valuation of Provisioning Services: various land uses

  A) consumption of fixed capital

  
• Factors affecting coral reef productivity

  • Climate change; temperature variation

  • Higher temperature zooxanthellae/algae on corals; when they die and extricate from the corals, the polyps bleach, the corals break easily/die

  • Coastal construction & reclamation

  • Ocean acidification

  • High nutrient load from fish feeding

  • Bioaccumulation & biomagnification if non-inert toxic mining

  wastes leach

  • Cyanide fishing; loss of herbivores

  • Anthropogenic: tourists step on corals

  • Crown of thorns (COT); sea star

  • sedimentation
• Factors affecting coastal recreation

  • Human waste; agriculture leacheates

  • Congestion

  • Water turbidity; algal blooms

  • Fresh sea air: vitamin sea

  • Scenic beauty/expression
• Factors affecting forest productivity

  • Soil structure and nutrients

  • Temperature

  • Interaction among species (e.g., shade trees and saplings;

  alien/invasive species) and between trees and other vegetation (allelopathy?), silvicultural practices (pruning, fertilization, thinning, etc.)

  • The forest configuration affect how rainfall percolates into the

  ground, and how much runs-off as surface water into receiving bodies (rivers, lakes, etc.)
• Renewable natural resources, especially fisheries, depleted more than non-renewable natural resources.