There are important political commitments to en-vironmental economic accounting, including the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 (Action 5: promote integration of values in accounting by 2020) and the CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 (Target 2, signed in Nagoya Japan in 2010). These political commitments remain in the heart of the EU: the recent Environment Council conclusion (October 2014) called on both the Commission and Member States to step up their efforts in develop-ing a system of valuation of EU natural capital, including contributing to the development of envi-ronmental accounts 10. On a national level, both the Finnish Biodiversity Strategy and Finnish Bioecon-omy Strategy (see 2.3 above) identify the develop-ment of a framework for natural capital accounting as one of the key future actions.
As outlined in Section 3 of this report, a com-prehensive set of national ecosystem service indi-cators is currently being developed with a view to monitoring and indicating the status and value of these services. These indicators play a key role in enhancing the integration of natural capital into the Finnish national accounting systems. Consequent-ly, future work on natural capital accounting in Fin-land is predicted to focus on more closely aligning the ongoing work on indicators with the existing framework national and environmental-economic accounts, leading to the development of ecosystem (capital) accounts in Finland (see also Mazza et al.
2013). This should be carried out within the general framework currently being developed under the EU-wide MAES initiative.
Given the challenges with indicators, the ap-propriate policy approach to developing natural capital accounting should be to identify a number of key ecosystem services for which the indicators and accounting can be developed within a short time frame, supported by plans for more detailed and time-intensive accounts in the future (ten Brink
& Russi 2014). Therefore, the key immediate next step in Finland would be to identify a number of ecosystem services and related indicators that could support the development of a pioneering set of ecosystem accounts. Building on the existing statistical frameworks for forestry, water resources and tourism, it appears sensible to focus on explor-ing how these frameworks could take on board broader information on forest, water and recreation related ecosystem services.
10 Council Conclusion on Greening the European semester and the Europe 2020 Strategy – Mid-term review (28. October 2014)
The existing forest accounts could be expanded to include dedicated information on carbon, pro-vided by the anticipated ecosystem indicators for carbon storing-habitats, carbon balance and car-bon stocks and sequestration (e.g. related value).
Furthermore, information related to the quality of forest ecosystems – also directly linked to the ability of forest ecosystems to support timber pro-duction – such as soil quality, soil carbon, nitrogen fixation and erosion control could be included to complement current information solely focused on the available and used timber. Such informa-tion could be used to create a picture of the over-all quality and the level of degradation of forest ecosystems. Finally, the forest accounts could also be expanded to acknowledge other economically important forest-related ecosystem services such as provisioning of wild berries, tourism and food resources for reindeer herding (lichen) in Lapland.
As regards water, the existing information on water resources and quality – supported by future information on water retention and infiltration capacity – could be combined and used to create a dedicated system for water accounts. First and foremost, it seems important to integrate the ex-isting data on water resource statistics with the information on the water quality. These two sets of complementary data currently seem disconnected, missing opportunities for joint national level analy-sis and conclusions. The anticipated indicators for water retention and water filtration (e.g. aquifers and undrained habitats, water retention potential, flood and flow control, ground water production) can function as key elements in bringing together information on water quantity and quality, while revealing the capacity of ecosystems for maintain-ing these attributes.
Similarly to the above, the existing national in-formation on fisheries – complemented by infor-mation on fisheries resources – could be used to develop dedicated national accounts for fisheries.
However, information and indicators on the cur-rent status of fish stocks might still require further research and development. Given the importance of recreational fishing in Finland (see Kettunen et al. 2012), these accounts would need to include information both on commercial and recreational fisheries.
The existing Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) could be expanded to include a dedicated element focusing on nature-based tourism, building on the set of ecosystem service indicators currently being developed this purpose (e.g. high nature value are-as, employment and tourism revenue). Ideally, the future TSA system would be able to both specify the significant role nature plays in creating domestic
and international tourism flows and also provide information on the quality of nature this economic sector heavily relies on (see also Section 7.1 above).
The development of monetary accounts for eco-system services does not seem to be an immediate a priority and there are no immediate plans to at-tempt to adjust the GDP to take into account eco-system degradation and loss of associated capacity to deliver ecosystem services (Mazza et al. 2013).
The latter is not currently seen as practical or fea-sible, due to the lack of robust empirical base and international standards. However, in the longer run the possibilities for such monetary accounts – when relevant and feasible – could be considered. Also in the longer run, ecosystem accounts are considered to be at their most useful for decision-making when linked to spatial data. This kind of development will need further research, methodological development and experimentations, but it is already seen as a promising direction and it is mentioned in the third volume of the SEEA revised version.
Finally, even the most comprehensive accounts cannot fully capture issues related to the irrevers-ible depletion or erosion of natural resources, eco-systems and ecosystem services (ecological lim-its and thresholds, nonlinearity) (Harris & Khan 2013). Consequently, it is crucial that transparency as regards to what accounts can or cannot cover is kept in mind when developing the accounts in the future.
There are major efforts underway for developing guidance (UNSTAT’s SEEA as well as very recent CBD guidance document Weber (2014)), as well as commitments to experimentation with accounts (NCA within the MAES process in Europe, and international experimentation within the WAVES11 initiative led by the World Bank). Finnish engage-ment with environengage-mental-economic accounting should therefore both be able to benefit from growing body of experience, as well as, contribute practice and insights to support the global com-mitments to improve governance, and both meet, biodiversity targets as well as address sectoral, and other policy concerns in a growing range of areas.
11 WAVES (Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosys-tem Services) is a global partnership that aims to promote sustainable development by ensuring that natural resources are mainstreamed in development planning. It promotes the development of environmental economic accounting according to the guidelines provided by the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). WAVES is funded by the Eu-ropean Commission, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom and it is being overseen by a steering committee. At the mo-ment, the core WAVES countries – Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Rwanda – are developing natural capital accounting. Source:
http://www.wavespartnership.org
110 The Finnish Environment 1en | 2015
YhA-Kuvapankki / Pekka Luukkola
8 Summary of conclusions and policy recommendations
All researchers
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