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A Crickets Worth*

Carlos Zorrilla

As one of the persons responsible for the existence of theAn Ecological Study of

Ecuador's Intag Region,1 I feel a need to express a few misgivings. Not about the findings of the

report itself or the relevance of the data, but about its potential misuse.The report was commissioned to present an economic argument against mining in Intag.

This region is within the Andes Tropical Hotspot, the most biodiverse of the world's 34 Biological

Hotspot. Social and environmental arguments against mining abound, and some of us in Intagresisting the onslaught of the mining interests since 1995 have always suspected that economically

it also didn't make sense. The economic argument is the only relatively coherent argument that the

government has used to convince the Ecuadorians to accept mining. It's coherent until you startlooking at things like the costs of destroying Intag's ecosystems to sustain a decade or two of

mining development.

Although the report clearly proves that in areas like Intag it makes much more economic

sense to conserve the forests and other habitats rather than turn them into open pit nightmares, Ifear it could be used wrongly in other areas or times and, in the wrong hands, play a too-important

of a role when making decisions that have grave consequences for the environment.

To me, it is clear that the report's usefulness mainly lies in its potential of making decision

makers, and the public in general, aware that ecosystems produce environmental services that- withall the tools imperfections- can be measured and assigned a monetary value to. I agree that this is

the equivalent of a troubling and necessary evil in this epoch of human life when a perverse

monetary outlook towards life dominates. I, as well as many of the economists and laypersons

adhering to this limited endorsement, am troubled by the potential misuse of such a tool, andunderlying premises.

One of the problems lies in that this tool cannot put a value on every single element- living

and non-living- of an ecosystem. Indeed, it is absurd to even consider that it is capable of doingso. For example the ballpark figure for the worth of a human is around a million dollars, accordingto some experts. What then, is the worth of a cricket? Or a Spectacled Bear? Or a walking stick?

Yet, there could be many millions, or billions, of crickets and walking sticks in an ecosystem.

These and myriad of other creatures may be part of intricate webs of life that help to maintain asystems resilience, and which are currently unknown to us. Since it is impossible to put an

economic value on these organisms, does it mean they are not worth anything? It does imply that

no matter how high, ecosystem assessments are undervaluing an ecological systems value.

This, needless to point out, goes beyond the fact that life cannot and should never have aprice put on it. Who doesn't think that it is supreme foolishness to try to put a million dollar price

tag on human life? This thing called life is much more than how much one is able to produce ineconomic terms, and we all know it instinctively, even if we cannot prove it economically.

I bring these points up because when pitting destructive land uses, such as mining, versusother alternatives- including leaving nature alone- decision makers could choose to only rely on the

figures generated by an assessment of ecosystem valuation that will not give the whole picture of

the ecosystems true worth. This will happen, in spite of the continued warnings expressed byecological economists who are conscious of the tools shortcomings. Based on ecosystem

assessment, for example, decision makers could select the most economically productive land use,

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even though it could mean complete devastation of threatened habitats and endangered species that

have been assigned a monetary value to. However, the destruction would also impact millions of

organisms that are not worth anything simply because it is impossible to put a monetary value onthem. Indeed, in our ignorance of the intrinsic value of all aspects of life and the intricacies of

ecosystems, we may not even see the consequences of the mass killing of these other organisms for

hundreds of years; even in monetary terms.Premises are everything to a culture. Our lives are subtly guided by them, we are

comforted by their existence and are even, at times, willing to surrender our lives to protect or

defend them. I believe that the authors of this seminal study understand that the premises that

force economists like them to undertake these kinds of studies are fundamentally flawed. Imtalking about basic premises, such as that the one that holds that society is able to- or needs to- put

a monetary value on anything, including life. That we have come to this point in order to protect

ecosystems and life itself, speaks volumes of our short-sightedness as a species completely out oftouch with the biological community of which we are an integral part of.

My fervent hope is that whoever uses this study understands that, while in places like Intag,

ecosystem services values are much higher than those produced by a few years worth of mineral

extraction, that they remember that even so, there is much more to an ecosystem than whateconomists are able to put a value on.

1. http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Latin%20America/Final%20Intag%20Report_lo_res.pdf

http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Latin%20America/Final%20Intag%20Report_lo_res.pdfhttp://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Latin%20America/Final%20Intag%20Report_lo_res.pdfhttp://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Latin%20America/Final%20Intag%20Report_lo_res.pdfhttp://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Latin%20America/Final%20Intag%20Report_lo_res.pdf