An ecological and socio-economic need

For the last one and a half centuries, humanity has been wantonly eating away at its natural reserves. This situation has lead to two world crises that are intricately connected:

An ecological crisis that entails losses in biodiversity and in ecosystem functions at the local, regional and global scales, as well as the shrinking of natural areas. Immediate consequences for mankind are conflicts for the acquisition of resources, and the loss of natural goods and services (e.g., wood supply, natural waste treatment, water purification, carbon sequestration, etc.).
A humanitarian crisis caused by ways of exploiting and sharing natural goods and services that are disadvantageous to the poorest among us. The unjust distribution of riches that arises from this contributes to massively degraded ecosystems everywhere on Earth. This situation is partly favoured by economic globalisation and the access to increasingly remote resources by wealthy people and economies.

Within this context, endeavouring only to preserve natural resources is not enough to guarantee the minimum goods and services needed by people. Ecologically restoring degraded ecosystems is also vain if it is not coupled with the implementation of sustainable exploitation systems and profound changes in our patterns of consumption.

The restoration of natural capital (RNC) reconciles the objectives and imperatives of biodiversity preservation and ecosystem health protection, local production in the short term, as well as long-term, sustainable economic development, both locally and internationally.

Natural capital, a concept developed at the end of the 1970’s, consists of all the sustainable ecosystems and ecological landscapes from which people derive services (e.g., clean air and water, carbon sequestration, waste treatment, etc.) and products (food, fodder, natural fibres, wood, etc.) that improve their well-being without any production cost (Daly and Farley, 2004*). Natural capital is divided into 4 categories:

renewable natural capital (living species, ecosystems);
non-renewable natural capital (oil, coal, diamonds);
recoverable natural capital (atmosphere, drinking water, fertile land);
cultivated natural capital (derived from agriculture and forestry, etc.).

This concept allows taking environmental issues into account in economic and political decision-making. It highlights the limiting role of natural resources and ecosystems in the socio-economic development of populations and nations.

* Daly H., Farley J., 2004. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications. Island Press. Washington, DC.