Food For Thought: Lessons From the Classroom...

Why do politicians neglect ecological principles in their decision making ?

   In the policy making arena decisions are often made using a cost-benefit model, which weighs the benefits and drawbacks of possible alternative decisions. Traditionally, cost benefit calculations are defined in financial or economic terms, not in ecological terms, and therefore cost benefit analysis' which dominate political decision making do not account for ecological factors. Attempts have been made to account for the economic qualities of healthy ecosystems. These calculations are commonly labeled as “ecosystem services”, most famously discussed by Robert Costanza. As Costanza describes, ecosystem services are not captured fully in commercial markets, and are not calculable in typical economic terms, say the way that manufactured or economic services are. As a result, ecological principles are ignored in the decision making process, as their economic value is unable to be defined by the traditional economic valuation system. By Costanza's calculations, healthy ecosystems provide services which would cost nearly 33 trillion dollars to duplicate. That is nearly twice the amount of global economic output. Hardly a trivial matter to be ignored in political decision making.

   Ecological considerations also come at the cost of traditionally defined economic development. For instance, land which may be important habitat for species or hold some unique and important position in regional biodiversity would be more strongly considered for its economic viability as a timber resource or, in parts of the developing world, as farm land. While that land may have economic value in terms of it's ecological health, that value is not captured commercially, and is therefore neglected in the decision making process.

   This failure to recognize either the economic or biological value of healthy ecosystems is a systematic failure on the part of the policy making and implementation system and it's cost-benefit analysis decision making model. This policy making system places a disproportionate emphasis on traditional economic values rather than on ecologically defined values, which makes it extraordinarily difficult for ecological considerations to be brought into the policy making arena.