本帖最后由 gc1030255 于 2010-1-30 00:16 编辑
Jan 29th ECO01
Green.view
Price fixing
Why it is important to put a price on nature
Jan 18th 2010 | From The Economist online
THE insight that nature provides services to mankind is not a new one. In 360BC Plato remarked on the helpful role that forests play in preserving fertile soil; in their absence, he noted, the land was turned into desert, like the bones of a wasted body. The idea that the value provided by such “ecosystem services” can be represented by ecologists in a way that economists can get to grips with（处理）, though, is rather newer. A number of the thinkers who have made it a hot topic in the past decade gathered at a meeting on biodiversity and ecosystem services held by the Royal Society, in London, on January 13th and 14th. They looked at the progress and prospects of their attempts to argue for the preservation of nature by better capturing the value of the things – such as pollination（传粉）, air quality and carbon storage – that it seemingly does for free.
以柏拉图的生态观点引出本文讨论内容——生态系统定价观
Environmental valuations aim to solve a problem that troubles both economists and ecologists: the misallocation of resources. Take mangrove swamps（红树林沼泽）. Over the past two decades around a third of the world’s mangrove swamps have been converted for human use, with many turned into valuable shrimp farms. In 2007 an economic study of such shrimp farms in Thailand showed that the commercial profits per hectare were $9,632. If that were the only factor, conversion would seem an excellent idea.
环境评估旨在解决同时困扰生态学家及经济学家的问题即资源的分配不均
以改红树林沼泽为虾场为例
However, proper accounting shows that for each hectare government subsidies formed $8,412 of this figure and there were costs, too: $1,000 for pollution and $12,392 for losses to ecosystem services. These comprised damage to the supply of foods and medicines that people had taken from the forest, the loss of habitats for fish, and less buffering against storms. And because a given shrimp farm only stays productive for three or four years, there was the additional cost of restoring them afterwards: if you do so with mangroves themselves, add another $9,318 per hectare. The overall lesson is that what looks beneficial only does so because the profits are retained by the private sector, while the problems are spread out across society at large, appearing on no specific
balance sheet（资产负债表）.
教训为私有企业只注意经济效益而忽略了社会环境的大问题
Ecosystem-services researchers are now providing such balance sheets in more and more of the world. Poor countries such as South Africa and Tanzania have realised that if they study the provision of such services sensibly, they can make more rational decisions and avoid some of the costly mistakes made by those places that have already developed. To this end, the Natural Capital Project, a group based at Stanford University, California, has developed a suite of computer programs called InVEST, which will analyse and map ecosystem services. InVEST allows farmers, landowners and government officials to make better-informed decisions about the current and future costs of an activity.
生态学家正在为许多贫困国家提供这样的资产表，介绍InVEST软件系统
In the Eastern Arc mountains in Tanzania, for example, deforestation is reducing river flows, which leaves the people and industries of Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city, short of both water and hydroelectricity. InVEST is being used to find the least bad places for further upstream development, and to pinpoint those areas where paying the locals to maintain the environment will yield the greatest dividends downstream（分流）. Meanwhile, in Colombia, funds have been created by water users, particularly the thirsty sugarcane industry, to pay for investment in watershed（转折点）
conservation and restoration. Again, the priority areas for such funds are being discovered by mapping the ecosystem services.
InVEST软件系统用于Tanzania实例
The move to put a price on nature has its critics. Some think the notion is an affront to those who place cultural, spiritual or aesthetic value on biodiversity for its own sake. It would be a mistake to look at things this way. In valuing a particular service – such as the cost of erosion to Greek hillsides – which can be quantified with a reasonable degree of certainty, you do not exhaust the reasons for preserving the groves where the dryads（森林女神） play.
为自然生态定价的评论，一些重视文化、精神、审美因素者认为是冒犯
The other concern, among nature lovers, is that valuations may not always give the answers that they want. Humans are fond of pandas and elephants: yet the species that provide the greatest utility may turn out to be dung beetles, bacteria and trees. To others, though, including many who come from economics, this is a feature, not a bug (or a beetle)（语言很诙谐，beetle与上文对应）. It means that the service approach really is trying to measure something useful, rather than confirming prejudices about what needs saving.
一些生态爱好者认为定价不能达到要求；另一些只注重经济
Partha Dasgupta, an economist at Cambridge University who gave the Royal Society meeting’s opening address, stressed that the ecosystem approach has still more to offer: it can go beyond being a decision tool to becoming a key part of macroeconomic thinking. Dr Dasgupta wants a new measure of national wealth that captures the state of a country’s environment in ways that GDP cannot, a measure he calls “Inclusive Wealth”. Pavan Sukhdev, an economist at the United Nations Environment Programme, agreed. By way of example, he offered the observation that although GDP incorporates increases in medical spending on respiratory diseases, it does not incorporate the value of reducing air pollution. GDP, he concludes, is an imperfect measure of progress.
PD及PS教授的观点：GDP增长不能衡量发展（经济发展不能忽略生态）
Ecologists, then, need to remember that the ultimate prize in ecological economics is not just an increase in the extent to which the environment is a factor in decision-making, but to find ways of weaving it into the fabric of economic thinking（将生态定价观念整合入生态思路中，语言形象生动）. If that results in a better and fuller approximation of the truth, economists should be pleased, too.
全文总结：生态学家及经济学家均应考虑生态定价观念
好词好句摘抄
in their absence
like the bones of a wasted body
get to grips with（处理）
map
pinpoint
yield vt.1.生产，出产，带来 2.让出，放弃 3.承认，同意 vi.1.投降 2.弯曲
for its own sake
exhaust the reasons
this is a feature, not a bug (or a beetle)（语言很诙谐，beetle与上文对应）
incorporate
weaving it into the fabric of economic thinking（将生态定价观念整合入生态思路中，语言形象生动）
生词难句疑点
pollination（传粉）
mangrove swamps（红树林沼泽）
balance sheet（资产负债表）
a written statement showing the amount of money and property that a company has and listing what has been received and paid out
资产负债表；决算表；资金平衡表
watershed n.1.分水岭，分水线 2.转折点，重要关头
dividends n.1.红利，股息 2.被除数
dryads（森林女神）
挖掘可以作为自己文章里example的事例，观点，人物
1.为生态定价的评价观点
The move to put a price on nature has its critics. Some think the notion is an affront to those who place cultural, spiritual or aesthetic value on biodiversity for its own sake. It would be a mistake to look at things this way. The other concern, among nature lovers, is that valuations may not always give the answers that they want. To others, though, including many who come from economics, this is a feature, not a bug (or a beetle).
2.贫困国家生态系统破坏现状及InVEST软件系统的应用
In the Eastern Arc mountains in Tanzania’s deforestation | 
发表于 2010-1-30 00:03:18
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