A new tool is allowing land trusts to account for the power of nature

This story originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of Saving Land magazine.

Economic analyses are often time-consuming and expensive to undertake. To help make them more accessible for land trusts, the Land Trust Alliance has partnered with Earth Economics to develop an ecosystem services valuation tool. The tool generates economic values of the ecosystem services produced by wetlands (herbaceous and woody), forests (evergreen, deciduous and mixed), grasslands, shrublands, rivers and lakes in a given area.

The benefits and importance of conserved land can seem self-evident, but land trusts often need to demonstrate that value to stakeholders, skeptics and even supporters. Framing the importance of conservation in terms of benefits provided to people and nature is one way to do that — benefits such as clean and accessible water; clean air; food, fiber and medicines; recreational opportunities; health and well-being; energy; and more. Quantifying these benefits can help land trusts make a stronger case for their work.

For example: Wetlands naturally filter water, thereby improving water quality for nearby communities — in economic terms, this benefit can be quantified as avoided water treatment costs. Wetlands also capture and store water during rainstorms, the value of which can be calculated as the costs of flood reduction.

The ecosystem services valuation tool is based on 1,467 values across 181 studies sourced from Earth Economics’ SERVES database, one of the world’s largest repositories of peer-reviewed studies, reports and literature on the value of ecosystem services. Land trusts can use the tool to estimate the value produced by the lands they steward. This lends itself to many purposes, such as:

• Promoting and communicating the value of protected ecosystems to stakeholders and supporters.

• Supporting funding applications that require reporting on project co-benefits.

• Incorporating co-benefits into public sector benefit-cost analyses.

• Supporting policy advocacy.

Land trusts are skilled at communicating the ecological and recreational benefits of their work. But capturing and sharing the economic values of conservation can help communities make better decisions about land management and inspire more investment and public support for the work of land trusts.

“Incorporating economic analyses into strategic conservation planning and decision-making will strengthen the case for public and private investment in land conservation,” said Erin Heskett, the Alliance’s vice president of conservation initiatives. “It will also help raise public awareness about the benefits of land conservation and support policy solutions that take into account the power of nature.”