Society must preserve, wisely use natural capital
(Winnipeg Free Press, November 7, 2001)

The Conservation That Works Conference, the largest gathering on conservation to place in Canada in 20 years, begins this morning in Winnipeg.

David J. McGuinty, President and CEO of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, will be among 600 delegates seeking to find common ground on the issue of economy versus the environment.

In our hearts we all know that business as usual – the way we operate in the free market system, our consumption levels, the efficiency with which we produce our goods and services – must adapt to our growing appreciation of the limited carrying capacity of our environment. We are currently undervaluing and overtaxing the ecosystems that provide the land, clean air and clean water that underpin all life.

But while the above observation is self-evidently true, it is not the whole truth.

We also know that to succeed on the scale necessary to safeguard our future, conservation plans and efforts must take into account the economic and social needs of nearby communities and the greater economy.

Science has presented us with a new realization about what it will take to protect nature. The conservation biology evidence now is conclusive – a parks system is not enough. If Canada were to complete its protection of 12 per cent of the nation’s area containing examples of all different types of ecosystems we have, it would still not be enough to preserve the biodiversity Canadians inherited when they occupied this land.

A parks system that consist of islands of preservation in a sea of disruptive activities risks becoming and archipelago of isles of extinction. And indeed the range required by some of the “totem species” that are virtually emblematic of our country – such as grizzlies and caribou – is so great that something more than a park is called for.

We will need to work with private landowners, corporations, aboriginal groups, communities and governments to provide buffer zones of low intensity use around parks and protected areas connecting them.

That’s what science says. But what about the prosperity and well-being of those Canadians to whom “nature” provides a paycheque?

Another way to view nature – and we do it every time we fell a tree, plow a furrow, or divert water over a turbine to generate electricity – is as natural capital. We build human capital in school, and we accumulate financial capital by consuming less wealth than we produce, but natural capital is a bequest we can spend, and sometimes restore, but never create.

Natural capital is a big reason why “good nature is good business”.

Increasingly, we are looking to nature for technical innovations. New medicines, chemicals, biological solutions – they all can be found in nature’s DNA bank where it has deposited the accumulated natural capital of 100 million years of evolution.

It’s clear that the prudent preservation and clever use of natural capital is at the heart of what we’re confronting her in Winnipeg today and tomorrow. Our talks are aimed at expanding the common ground shared by farmers, miners, aboriginal peoples, conservationists, cattle producers and communities.

And there is much common ground – we’re getting beyond the false polarity of “the economy versus the environment.”

The two-day conference, co-hosted by the Manitoba Round Table on Sustainable Development and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, will showcase what’s effective and examine approaches that have failed.

David J. McGuinty is President and CEO of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

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