Nature, as well as obviously being 'for itself', is essential to human welfare and crucial to our global economy. Despite this, the value of natural capital is consistently taken for granted. The UK's Natural Capital Committee (NCC) has recently published its second State of Natural Capital report which examines the risks to natural capital as well as the benefits of integrating its importance into policy-making. The NCC was established in May 2012 to advise the Government on how to ensure England’s ‘natural wealth’ is regulated both efficiently and sustainably.
The report has three key messages:
- assets are currently not being used sustainably and the benefits we acquire from them are at risk
- there are economic benefits to be made from natural capital that should be integrated into policy-making; and
- a long-term renewal plan is necessary to preserve natural capital for future generations
The report also proposes a framework for a 25-year plan aimed at improving and maintaining our natural environment. It might help if more people understood the concept of natural capital – and what they can do to restore and enhance it. A pity, then, that so little about this is taught in schools.
Perhaps Defra could start running an environmental learning programme to go alongside DfID's global learning one. Maybe Pearson would want to be involved. Perhaps the new secretary of state, Liz Truss, will have it at the top of her agenda ahead of flood prevention, eliminating TB in cattle, killing badgers and beavers, and keeping the National Farmers Union on side.
All this is unlikely, of course, but what a prospect ...
Responses
Just the sort of refreshing thinking I enjoy reading......and proposing.
That's what made teaching such an enjoyable and rewarding occupation because when my career began we were being encouraged to think "outside the box" which implied outside my Victorian classroom with its tall windows designed so you looked to the teacher with no outside views to tempt a wider view of learning. Need I say more!