The Questions of Natural Capital Science

The Natural Capital Project pioneers science, technology, and partnerships that enable nature and people to thrive. Centered at Stanford University, Nat Cap drives innovation across disciplines, engaging with experts across all the seven schools here and around the world. In our work, Natural Capital refers to Earth’s land, waters, and their biodiversity. Basically the machinery of nature that keeps this planet habitable and provides all the basic ingredients of human wellbeing. Makes our lives possible and fulfilling. Most people focus around climate change, but climate change is only the tip of the iceberg.

00:51 - We’re destroying the diversity of life on Earth, we’re changing biogeochemical cycles, we’re putting plastic into the oceans– on and on and on. So the Natural Capital Project is really a unique organization of being able to bridge both–the key thing here is science and practice. So if you just wanted to do things in terms of science, academia is probably the place to do that. If you just want to do things in terms of practice, there are many organizations like TNC and WWF that have on-the-ground actions and practitioners. But it’s this bridging, being able to take the best science and then being able to take this out and communicate it to communities so that we get changes in action so that ultimately we do things which are best for nature and people.

01:37 - The first question Natural Capital science needs to address to inform leaders in driving open these new pathways for green inclusive growth is where to invest? How much and where should we protect? What elements of nature are crucial to bring into the future with us? And what elements really need restoration in order to bolster the suite of benefits that humanity relies on for health, for water security, for climate security, for food security, and everything else. The second key question is, you know, what sorts of policy and finance mechanisms will incentivize that investment? Enable investment in forest restoration or wetland restoration and protection. Same on mangroves, coral reefs in ocean systems. We all know that we’ve driven Natural Capital to an all-time low just at a time when human numbers and our aspirations and impacts are at an all-time high. So it’s clear we need to restore natural capital, it’s clear we need to be really smart and efficient about it–targeting investments in the people and places and in the types of new economic systems that will open this pathway for green and inclusive types of growth.

03:10 - So right now I think that the ways that governments and investors and businesses make decisions, doesn’t capture the connection between nature and people, and NatCap’s work makes what’s previously been invisible visible to those decision-makers in new ways. We’re going to achieve the future that we’re all hoping for. A world in which nature and people thrive, a world in which in an inclusive way we drive open green pathways of development. We absolutely need to know what the assets are. What the basic Natural Capital assets are that generate all of the well-being upon which we fundamentally depend. .