Natural Capital Assets

Natural Capital Assets in the Lower Wolastaq Valley

VOICES for Sustainable Environments and Communities, February 2024

Introduction

Natural Capital is a concept that aims to put financial values to environmental aspects such as air, water, soil, weather, and biodiversity. A specific study area will possess these aspects in such a way that certain crops will grow, certain wild plants and animals will exist, commercial enterprises will thrive, and people will want to live there. If these parts of the environment are harmed, then people will not choose the live there. If during the past 100 years coal has been produced economically, for example, natural capital will have brought people to the area to work and live. If, on the other hand, coal is no longer produced in the area then some jobs and businesses will leave. These economic impacts can be recognized, predicted, and monetized. Natural Capital is a good vehicle for measuring sustainability and the economic health of a region. As becomes more obvious by the day, very few environmental assets are truly sustainable; climate change is working against us; we must plan for this future diminution of the environment.

Identifying Natural Capital Assets

Each aspect of the environment needs to be separately identified and evaluated. Some or all of these must be examined:

Clean Air

Fresh Water

Salt Water

Geological Resources

Attractive Geomorphic Features Available to Visitors

Intact Surface Biosphere

Amenable Weather Conditions

and others

Some of these will be more important than others depending on the location.

Evaluating Current Status of Natural Capital Assets

It is very important to describe the present condition of those important aspects of the environment to document the Natural Capital Baseline. The baseline will describe how robust is each of the environmental assets and will estimate how long each asset might be available in the area considering forecast population pressures and forecast climate changes. The descriptions will also involve a priority list as a ranking of the assets as they affect the study area.

#1: Fresh Water is necessary for most plants and animals and for humans. Source of the water may be surface water or ground water or a combination. Each source could be finite or self-renewing. It is important to compute the sustainable annual volume that can be used before supplies are exhausted.

An important part of this assessment is the growth in freshwater contamination, essentially reducing the volume of useable fresh water. Contamination is usually by way of industrial activity such as oil and gas extraction, releases from chemical facilities, releases from Canadian National Defence facilities, or releases from agricultural plants such as feedlots and manure storage. In addition, sea-level rise can cause significant salt encroachment into important aquifers. Researching these data within an historical context may be difficult; analyses of water samples will be very expensive but important. Contamination by complex volatile organic compounds could render large volumes of surface and ground water unusable.

#2: Prevailing Air Quality will influence all forms of life in the region and the quality is finite for the study area. For example, new industrial facilities can degrade air quality leading to a reduced crop production, livestock viability, and attractiveness for new and present residents.

#3: Geological Resources can include recoverable amounts of coal, oil, methane, sand and gravel, fertile soil, brick clay and various ores. Government databases list regional income from these products. All these resources will be finite in their distribution and so will not be available forever. In addition, environmental regulations may limit or even prevent extraction activities.

#4: Temperature and precipitation go together to determine what grows naturally in the area and what crops can be grown for profit. The total value of each crop can be found on Government of Canada websites. Significant changes to precipitation and temperature will have effects on total crop value. In addition, weather changes may affect other aspects of life. The reduction of winter snow may well mean that our “new winters” no longer support snowmobiles and skiing.

#5: Attractive public land available to tourists can be a valuable Natural Capital Asset depending upon the area of study. Tourist business to the study area can be found in government data. Campgrounds, hotels, B&Bs, and restaurants will all benefit from the level of tourism. Population growth, industrial development, and climate changes could all be factors that greatly influence public land resources.

Forecasting Impacts to Natural Capital Assets

Certain commercial activities and changes in global climate can impact the local environment in serious ways. Activities such as extraction of geological resources and industrial processing of resources will have impacts on assets such as clean air, clean water and the biosphere that depends on these assets. A new iron ore processing plant may have some level of toxic emissions to local air and water, emissions that will degrade air quality and perhaps reduce the amount of fresh water available for use throughout the year.

Summarizing Current and Future Natural Capital

Current annual values of Natural Assets can be summarized with good accuracy by totaling up sales for the past few years. It may be the largest economic footprint is the tourism business that bring in large incomes to area residents. Climate crises within the coming years, however, may impact tourist attractions and cause a drop in hospitality income. Higher average temperatures, droughts, and new insect pests can lead to a reduction of the boreal forest and its attractiveness for fishermen, hunters, hikers, and campers. It may soon become obvious that several interests are competing for a declining Natural Asset. As soon as these conflicts can be predicted, the better the chances of avoiding them.

References

Writing on the subject:

#1 UN: https://seea.un.org/content/natural-capital-and-ecosystem-services-faq

#2 Good example: https://capitalscoalition.org/casestudy/natural-capital-protocol-case-study-for-natura/

#3 Templates: