Natural Capital

Two geologists walk into a bar. The first one says to the bartender, “You know, soon there’s going to be a shortage of sand.” The bartender looks up, waiting for the punchline. The second geologist says, “He’s not kidding and that’s not a joke.”... [It’s an increasing concern, particularly as] Consumption [is anticipated to] accelerate as governments resume infrastructure projects that were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic...

The first open-source, user-friendly artificial intelligence (AI) tool for rapid, standardized, and customizable ecosystem accounting launched last week.

The ARIES for SEEA Explorer allows users to generate ecosystem accounts for any user-specified terrestrial area in the world (such as a country, administrative region, watershed, etc.), by using freely available global remote-sensing derived data and models, and rapidly computes these accounts online, using a web browser.

In March, the Institute for Forestry Conservation (ICF)—the Honduran institute in charge of protected areas—declared Honduras’s first and largest community-based ‘managed access’ area in coastal waters and designated it a “Site of Importance for Wildlife”

Here the question of defining the price of water arises. Although by now there are widely accepted measurements for greenhouse gas emissions – key to assessing pollution impacts - there is not yet any similar measurement of the real price of water in different environments. The sustainable management of natural capital can play a significant role in tackling climate change in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Looking into it now will help us to actively help shape our regions' destiny, and further expand the scope of our activities into that longer-term future.

ADB, The Nature Conservancy Agree to Joint Action on Nature-Positive Investments

Still Only One Earth: Lessons from 50 years of UN sustainable development policy. Over-exploitation of natural resources harms the health of ecosystems and the wellbeing of people.