Figure 7 – The Parial Economy Model
A Shift in Scarcity
Over the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period in human history.22 There is ample evidence that scarcity has shifted from built capital to natural capital. This is true for many resources within the Puget Sound. Our ability to lay asphalt outweighs our ability to provide flood risk reduction. Similarly, once-extravagant timber harvests are now limited by land availability and tree growth, rather than available logging equipment. Consider that in 1900, the well-known timber magnate Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased 900,000 acres of prime Washington forestland for just $137 million (in 2009 dollars), or approximately $150 per acre.84; k Compare this value with a more recent assessment of forestland among 38 counties in western Washington and Oregon, which found average values of $1,483 per acre.85; l On a global scale, many expert studies now show that humans are depleting Earth’s flow of natural goods and services faster than the flow can be regenerated, and in many areas humans are depleting the natural capital that produces this flow. For example, it has been estimated that humans now directly or indirectly appropriate up to 40% of the Earth’s Annual Net Primary Productivity,40; 86 dramatically reducing the amount available for other species, including those that support humans (such as fisheries). Net Primary Productivity is the total biomass that is produced by ecosystems through photosynthesis; it is the foundation for life on Earth. Other measures present a similar picture. The World Wildlife Fund recently calculated the “Ecological Footprint” of humanity, or the land and sea area that would be needed to sustainably regenerate the resources that humans consume and the waste they produce annually. It was found that the current rate of human resource consumption and waste disposal requires 1.3 planet Earths – and this “footprint” is growing.87 An important reason for this shift in scarcity is that in the past century alone, the per-capita economic production of market goods and services, has increased nine-fold.88 The next two figures illustrate the human economy’s move from the “Empty World” situation of the past to the “Full World” situation that humans live in today.
Weyerhaeuser’s purchase cost him $5.4 million in 1900; this value was converted to 2009 dollars using http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ (retrieved November 2010). l Original value in this 2004 study was $1,483. This value has also been converted to 2009 dollars using http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ (retrieved November 2010). k
Economic Impact of Metro Parks Tacoma Ecosystem Services
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