THE RICHNESS OF NATURE IS OUR CAPITAL December 2017
The Kyrgyz Republic is a beautiful country, blessed with an abundance of rivers, mountains, wild animals, flowers and insects. It has the foundations of a good economy and the potential to grow. We love and depend on nature for many things: the air we breathe, our water and wood, food for our cattle and for ourselves, a walk in the country at weekends, but it also helps us by providing protection from floods and landslides.
Some may say you cannot put a price on these things, but there are ways to put soms to these riches. Nature – the environment – is important not only in emotional terms but monetary terms too. By knowing the value of nature and what it contributes to the economy, we are made more aware of what could be lost, and to prevent this, more aware of the need for systematic management of this natural capital.
UNDP–UN Environment Poverty-Environment Initiative
Valuation of ecosystems in the Kyrgyz Republic
Chon Kemin US$1.9 million per year (only for timber, firewood, mushrooms, berries, herbs, pastures and water)
Son-Kul US$16 million Kyzyl-Unkur US$21 million
Zerger US$1.9 million
Forest cover
Chon-Aksuu US$9.3 million
Karakol State Natural Park US$1.8 billion
1,116,000 ha or 5.6% of the total area. The annual value of timber and non-timber forest products is estimated to be KGS 830.4 million. Approximately 200,000 people live in forest areas and are highly dependent on timber and non-timber forest products.
Protected areas
7.64% of the total area. Indispensable for the future development of the tourism sector. Home to a number of protected species, including the world-famous snow leopard.
Glaciers
About 4% of the total territory, containing about 590km3 of ice, forming a unique reservoir of fresh water, on which depend millions of people in Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Kazahstan. According to estimates their area has already reduced by 20% and they may be fully gone by 2100.
Pastures
cover 9,147,000 ha, of which approximately one third is classified as degraded. Annual cost of degradation in selected pastures (200,000 ha) is US$2 million.
Number of plants and animal species
11 extinct 207 threatened, of which: mammals 20%, invertebrates 16%, fish 6%, reptiles 9%, birds 49%.
Forest areas Protected areas
HOW CAN WE ASSESS THE VALUE OF NATURE?
Economists have developed different methods for putting an approximate value on nature. In a very simplified way, we could look at nature as if it were a factory that is producing certain things: honey, firewood, berries and food that helps our cattle to grow and produce milk and meat; clean water to drink (which otherwise would need to be purified in water treatment plants).
money in the bank – how much money then do we need to put in the bank? And what about the cost of replacing these natural functions with artificial functions if nature is no longer able to fulfil the function because it has been used up or destroyed?
We can easily estimate how much of such things a particular territory produces every year and put a value on it all because we buy and sell these products. Adding up all the values we can obtain a total ‘production capacity’ expressed in KGS per year of this ‘natural factory’. This is, for example, how the value in KGS/y was calculated for Chon Kemin and the annual value of timber and non-timber forest products also indicated.
By answering these questions, we are estimating the value of nature as production capital (or natural capital). This is how the values for ChonAksuu, Zerger, Kyzyl-Unkur, Son-Kul, and Karakol State Natural Park were estimated.
In a similar way we can estimate the value of CO2 captured by the forests and soils or the value of cleaner air (what we save by not being sick so often), or the value that tourists attach to nature, the value of all wild animals, or the value of avoided damages from floods and landslides. We can also ask, if we assume this is a ‘factory’ that is able to make ‘products’ that are worth so much money every year, how much we as an ‘investor’ are willing to pay to buy such a factory? Or, if we wanted to get the same amount of KGS per year from the interest earned by putting our
These values are in stark contrast with what the 2017 Public and Private Environmental Expenditure Review found we are actually spending to protect nature, the ‘factory’ that every year is producing the things upon which we all depend. To put it into perspective, the annual average expenditure between 2011 and 2016 of the State Agency for Environment Protection and Forestry on protected areas management and expansion in 2016 was KGS 106 million, or KGS 40-45 per ha on average, which is substantially less than the value of just some of the goods and services provided by on average 1 ha of Chon Kemin (approximately KGS 900).
Information based on: Policy and Institutional Review for Environment Financing with a Focus on Biodiversity and Climate Change Adaptation in the Kyrgyz Republic (2017) Public and Private Expenditure Review (2017) For further information, visit the BIOFIN knowledge platform: http://biodiversityfinance.net/knowledge-platform
40-45
soms per ha
Expenditure on protected areas management
900
soms per ha
Chon Kemin goods and services
Photo credit: Xavi. Sourced from Flickr via Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)