Dead planet, living planet

- -

5 000

4 000

3 000

2 000

1 000

6 000

7 000

8 000

9 000

10 000

11 000

12 000

13 000

Source: R. Costanza

The value of the world’s ecosystem

services and natural capital

Nature, 1998.

Open ocean

Sea grass -

Algae bed

Other coastal

biomes

Shelf

Lakes -

Rivers

Wetlands

Tropical forest

Rock and ice

Grasslands

Croplands

Temperate and

Boreal forest

Coral reef

Estuaries

Ecosystem services value

Bilion of US dollars per year,

adjusted to 2010 inflation rate

uncertain

data

Figure 14:

The values of ecosystem services (Costanza

et al

, 1998).

However, while there is general public recognition of the benefits

of restoration, policymakers needs to become more aware of the

financial aspects associated with either conservation (where pos-

sible), restoration or, ultimately, continued degradation or loss of

ecosystem services. In general the cost of conservation lies around

500 USD/ha on average (range 0.01–1,000 USD/ha/year), com-

pared to a few thousand to up to several hundred thousand USD/

ha in restoration costs for the same areas. These costs, however, are

dwarfed by the cost of the services provided over decades, which

amount to tens of thousands and even millions of dollars per ha.

It is in simple terms much more financially profitable to protect

than to restore where possible, but even restoration compared to

loss provides a benefit/cost ratio of 3–75 in return of investments

and an internal rate of return of 7–79%. Thus, avoiding loss of eco-

systems by initial conservation, particularly of forests, mangroves,

wetlands and the coastal zone, including coral reefs, should be a

primary objective from a cost-benefit analysis (Dodds

et al

., 2008).

As large shares of the world’s ecosystems are already degraded

or even lost, ecosystem restoration provides a low-risk, benefi-

cial, cost-effective and financially sound investment providing

excellent internal rates of return – and with high public aware-

ness and support. The implementation, however, requires

broad multi-sectoral and multi-staker involvement to ensure

proper success. This relates also to careful consideration to

payer-systems and public-private partnerships (Holl and How-

arth, 2000), as multiple sectors will benefit.

The cost of conservation and required management, while

highly variable, is typically USD 0.01–1,000 per hectare per

year, commonly around 10–15 USD/ha/year (). In comparison,

the cost of restoration is from a few hundred dollars to 554,000

USD/ha for coral reefs as the most costly (TEEB, 2008, high

scenario), compared to annual benefits from ecosystem servic-

es of 1,010 USD/ha/year to 129,200 USD/ha/year.

A survey of 62,108 river restoration projects in the US report-

ed a total spending of 1.6 billion USD or an average of 25,761

USD per river (O’Donnell and Galat, 2007), with water quality

improvement as the most common primary purpose. In com-

parison, 7.8 billion USD was invested in restoring the Florida

Everglades ecosystem. It is however also important to moni-

tor the effect of the investments and compare lower-intensity

restoration with intensive restoration measures to evaluate the