I recently attended a panel discussion on nature and biodiversity as part of my MBA induction week. I expected it to be 1) a statement of intent about the importance of nature and biodiversity and 2) an encouragement to students to make decisions that favour preservation and restoration of nature and biodiversity.
The direction the discussion took was quite different; it provoked some good follow-up discussion among the class. Our discussions focused on how our view of nature and biodiversity affects our decision-making. Do we see them as having intrinsic worth or instrumental worth?
In other words: do nature and biodiversity have inherent value making them worthy of preservation – and restoration? Or are they valuable only in-so-far as they serve human interests?
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Among the panellists was a researcher who spoke about how her research into genes that determine the colour of parrot feathers proved useful to breeders of ornamental birds. By examining the DNA of parrots, one can breed more selectively to produce rarer or prettier colours, that would in turn command higher prices from customers.
How sad.
The parrot has no intrinsic worth here. It’s a tool for money-making.
The scientist fits the knowledge they created into a value chain, selling it to enable profit-boosting precision breeding.
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The parrot example provoked me to think: a lot comes down to whether we see nature and biodiversity as having intrinsic value or instrumental value.
With intrinsic value, our tendency will be to protect and to restore. With instrumental value, our tendency will be to extract and to destroy (or at best, to have a neutral impact).
Our behaviour towards things with intrinsic value is arguably more likely to be alert to threats or harm and to invest time, expertise, and funds to protect whatever is being threatened. As an example, the humanitarian sector is founded upon the premise that all human beings have inherent dignity and worth, so human suffering should be prevented and relieved wherever it’s found.
However, when we consider things as only having instrumental value, we can much more easily justify extraction, degradation, or a practical kind of preservation intended only to ensure future usefulness.
An ornamental bird breeder isn’t invested in enabling birds to thrive in their natural habitat and play their part in balancing fragile ecosystems. Indeed, the scarcity of birds can actually be an advantage to a breeder who has the means to produce and sell something scarce at a higher price.
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There’s a clear counterargument here: surely the instrumental value of nature and biodiversity is what would motivate humans to act responsibly and not exhaust natural resources or irreversibly harm biodiversity? So long as we need wood, we won’t cut down all the trees. We’ll replant. So long as we need fish, we won’t empty the seas. We’ll manage fishing to restore numbers.
…but the thing is: we won’t. We aren’t.
In a globalised world, production and consumption often take place so far away from one another that harms are hidden. Prices paid at the point of consumption in no way reflect the cost (human, transport, environmental, and other) of production. It should be obvious to us that incentives often push companies towards maximising revenue while minimising monetary costs. Non-monetary costs – such as environmental costs – are more readily accepted, as they don’t appear in financial statements.
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So, it’s not enough to see nature and biodiversity as having instrumental value.
To act responsibly, we need to see them as having intrinsic value and engage with them respectfully. We need to increase the level of transparency – and preferably the level of proximity – of the chain between the production and consumption of goods and services.
And when we hear stories about humans using nature and biodiversity to turn a profit, let’s pause and consider whether true preservation is built into the process or whether there are harms that are unrecognised, hidden, or ignored.