Accounting for natural capital in BC : forestry and conflict in the Slocan Valley
Date
1998
Authors
Green, Thomas Leslie
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Abstract
BC's timber industry appears to be unsustainable. Government has drawn on economic analysis applied in a Multiple Accounts framework to reduce social conflict and arrive at more rational forest management decisions. Such studies report income in a way inconsistent with its Hicksian definition reinterpreted in a "full" world. This inconsistency and related deficiencies favour industrial forestry over ecosystem-based approaches.
Building on Hicksian income and a societal commitment to sustainable development, I propose that economic analysis of renewable resource extraction be required to account for natural capital through an "interest/depletion" approach, whereby scenarios are evaluated against an ecosystem-based baseline.
Applying these proposals to BC's Slocan Valley, where a struggle to protect ecosystems from industrial forestry culminated in civil disobedience, I illustrate how economic consequences are recast in a way relevant to sustainability. Political economy considerations temper the prognosis: values, perspectives, and interests are diverse and contested; power is concentrated; reform unlikely.