The difficulty facing most community planners, developers, landowners and ultimately government regulators is how to value quality wildlife habitat. We know very well the value of damaged habitat, because it can be priced on the value of replacement or recovery. BP’s oil spill will damage habitat and they will bear this cost to restore it to original condition. But how can you value undamaged quality habitat? Why is it important?
The latter question is easier than the first. One of the few issues in conservation politics that concerns the greater public is the issue of property rights and land use regulation to protect endangered species. It’s even created a well known backlash, the wise use movement, which rebelled against the taking of land for the protection of endangered species without compensation. Although generally dismissed by liberal groups as a front for the resource industry, the issue of taking away property rights without compensation strikes to the heart of American politics. The right to be fairly compensated for public use of our property is covered in the fifth amendment to our constitution. Unfortunately there is no “ blue book “ of wildlife habitat value so how can one value it?
You can answer this question with a broader question, how do you value anything? For most things worth is determined by how much someone is willing to pay. To do this one must create a metric. For example if I want to buy lunchmeat I trade my dollars based on its weight, about $5.50 a pound in my food store. Once you have a good metric the market can determine the value. For example we will likely reduce carbon emissions by creating a market in carbon credits, or a credit for companies that stay below the threshold for safe carbon emissions. They will trade their credit with a company that exceeds the threshold and the market in these credits will determine the price.
In wildlife habitat there is no market for quality habitat credits because there is no metric on which value can be based. Without a metric there can be no market-determined price for quality habitat credits. I am coleading a project to do just that. More in another post.
