Hi All,
In its most simplistic sense, the dollar value of a habitat is surely the
cost of recreating that habitat. I try to convey this message to councils
all the time. We wader people have had to recreate roosts elsewhere after
development approvals have allowed roost destruction,. Artificial wader
roosts don't come cheaply, and come with a high heartburn dosage. Grey hairs
are thrown in for free.
cheers,
Jill
Bill Stent 8/12/02 2:51 PM
> "The economics are absolutely stark"
>
> Tragically, that's not so.
>
> I'm not entirely across this, having been out of the industry for a few
> years, but I can assure you that cost benefit analyses can balance very
> finely on assumptions used in building models. The most important of these
> would be the "discount rate" - that is, how much we all (not just the
> economists) under-value future cash flows. A higher discount rate will tend
> to blinker you from future consequences of your actions. For a truly
> sustainable approach we should have a very low discount rate. Unfortunately
> (again, tragically) discount rates tend to be high - highest in the private
> sector, where the approach is often "if we can't make a big profit in a
> short time it's not worth doing".
>
> Another assumption that tips the balance (currently) in favour of the
> bulldozers is how you value the environment. For example, there may be
> tremendous value in having the environment there for everyone to enjoy (so
> called "existence value"), but you can't put existence value in the bank, or
> get a loan using existence value as collateral.
>
> There are many other things to say here, but I'll stop there before I get
> flamed for being a communist...
>
> Bill Stent
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Behalf Of John Harris
> Sent: Monday, 12 August 2002 2:32 PM
> To:
> Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] The Cost of Preservation
>
>
>
>
--
Jill Dening
Sunshine Coast, Qld
26º 51' 152º 56'
Ph (07) 5494 0994
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