BARCELONA, SPAIN, October 10, 2008: An EU-commissioned study has found that the global economy is losing more money every year from the disappearance of forests than it has in the current banking crisis. Adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide, the study estimates the annual cost of forest loss is between $2 trillion and $5 trillion. While Wall Street has lost some $1-$1.5 trillion in its current crisis, this $2-$5 trillion loss recurs year after year.
The study, “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb),” shows that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free. When that happens, we must either provide them ourselves–perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available–or do without them.
Either way, there is a financial cost–a cost which falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.
The greatest immediate cost to western nations comes from losing a natural absorber of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas.