Natural Capital & Natural Income (HL IB ESS OLD COURSE - IGNORE)

Revision Note

Natural Capital & Natural Income

What is natural capital?

  • Natural resources are the sources of energy and raw materials that society uses and consumes

  • In other words, the term natural resources applies to anything that comes from nature that can be used to benefit humans

    • Examples include:

      • Sunlight is essential for photosynthesis, solar energy

      • Air: oxygen for breathing, wind energy

      • Water: drinking, irrigation, hydroelectric power

      • Land: soils, agriculture, construction, habitat for wildlife

      • Rocks: minerals, construction materials

      • Ecosystems: forests, wetlands and coral reefs

      • Living things: plants for food and medicine, animals for food and clothing

    • In the environmental sciences, these resources are sometimes referred to as natural capital

  • Definition: natural capital is the stock of natural resources available on Earth

  • Types of natural capital:

    • Renewable resources are resources that can be replenished naturally

      • Examples: forests (timber), fish populations

    • Non-renewable resources are resources that are finite and cannot be replenished

      • Examples: fossil fuels (coal, oil), minerals (gold, iron ore)

    • Ecosystem services are the benefits provided by ecosystems that support human life and economic activity

      • Examples: pollination of crops, water purification, carbon sequestration

What is natural income?

  • Definition: natural income is the flow of goods and services produced by natural capital

    • Examples of goods:

      • Fish: harvested from oceans and rivers

      • Timber: harvested from forests for building and paper products

    • Examples of services:

      • Climate regulation: forests reduce global warming by absorbing CO2

      • Flood prevention: wetlands reducing flood risk by absorbing excess rainfall, or mangroves buffering against storm surges

Sustainable natural income

  • If these natural goods and services are carefully and sustainably managed, they can provide even more resources over time

    • This is referred to as sustainable natural income

    • For example:

      1. Trees are cut down for timber but forests are also re-planted or left to recover

      2. The rate of new tree growth is greater than the rate of timber production

      3. Timber production is a sustainable source of income that can be marketed and used to benefit humans

  • In other words, natural income is the term used to describe the sustainable income produced by natural capital

    • Again, using the timber production example:

      • Our forests are the natural capital

      • The sustainable timber we can obtain from these forests is our natural income

  • Non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels, can be used to generate wealth but can only be used once and cannot be sustainably managed

    • Therefore, even if they can be considered as natural capital, non-renewable resources cannot produce sustainable natural income

Flowchart depicting the effects of sustainable and unsustainable use of natural capital, including examples of goods and services provided by natural income.
Natural capital can be used to generate natural income, but this can be done in a sustainable or unsustainable way

Perspectives on nature

  • Economic value:

    • Viewing nature as natural capital highlights the economic value of resources

    • Encourages investment in their preservation and sustainable use

    • It helps policymakers and businesses recognise financial benefits of maintaining healthy ecosystems

  • Sustainable management:

    • Emphasising natural capital and natural income encourages sustainable management practices

    • By valuing natural resources as capital, societies are more likely to invest in conservation efforts

      • Ensures a continuous flow of natural resources, such as clean water, air and fertile soil

  • Anthropocentrism:

    • This perspective may imply that nature exists solely for human use and exploitation

      • This is an extreme anthropocentric view

    • It suggests that the environment's primary purpose is to serve human needs and economic interests

      • Leads to over-exploitation and degradation of natural resources

  • Intrinsic value:

    • Some argue that this anthropocentric view reduces nature's intrinsic value

      • I.e. it ignores the inherent worth of ecosystems and species beyond their use to humans

Examiner Tips and Tricks

The terms natural capital and natural income are very easy to confuse. If you are finding this concept tricky, try to remember the following analogy: money in a bank (sometimes referred to as capital) may gain interest over time if it is carefully managed. Natural income is effectively the interest that humans can live off and benefit from, if natural capital is sustainably managed!

Ecosystem Services

  • Definition: benefits provided by ecosystems that support life and human well-being

  • Ecosystem services usually fall into one of four main categories:

    • Supporting services

    • Regulating services

    • Provisioning services

    • Cultural services

Ecosystem Service

Description

Examples

Supporting

Essential ecological processes for supporting life

Primary productivity (photosynthesis)

Soil formation

Cycling of nutrients (e.g. carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle)

Regulating

A diverse set of services that shape and stabilise ecosystems

Climate regulation

Flood regulation

Water quality regulation

Air quality regulation

Erosion control

Disease and pest control

Provisioning

The goods humans obtain from ecosystems

Food

Fibres

Fuel

Fresh water

Timber

Cultural

These services derive from humans interacting with nature in a culturally beneficial way

Recreation and tourism

Education

Health benefits

Sense of place, national identity and cultural heritage

Employment

Examples of Regulating Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem service

Description

Further information

Examples

Water replenishment

Natural process of replenishing water in aquifers, rivers and lakes

Provides clean drinking water

Supports agriculture and industry

Mountain watersheds—snowmelt and rainfall replenish rivers and groundwater, e.g. glacial meltwater

Flood and erosion protection

Ecosystems absorb excess rainfall and prevent soil erosion

Wetlands and floodplains reduce flood risks

Coastal mangroves and vegetation protect against storm surges

Coastal Mangroves in Southeast Asia protect shorelines and support fisheries

Forest tree root networks stabilise soil and prevent erosion on hillsides

Pollution mitigation

Ecosystems help remove pollutants from the environment

Improves water quality in rivers and lakes

Reed bed buffer zones filter water, removing inorganic nutrients and pollutants

Wetlands e.g. saltmarshes, absorb pollution

Carbon sequestration

Process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide

Forests and oceans act as carbon sinks

Reduces greenhouse gases, mitigating climate change

Tropical rainforests, e.g. Amazon rainforest is a major carbon sink, regulating global climate

Seagrass meadows

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