OSLO, (Reuters) – An index to judge the state of Norway’s nature is a world first that may be a step towards valuing “free” services such as insect pollination or forest growth in a radical shift in economics, officials say.
The “Nature Index of Norway”, worked out this year and to be presented at U.N. talks on biological diversity in Japan next week, shows that seas, coastal waters, freshwater and mountains are in a good state but forests and lowlands are suffering.
Oslo says it has used 309 indicators to get what it calls the “world’s first official index of nature” comparing 2010 to 2000 and 1990. Scores for 2010 range from about 0.8 for freshwater, where 1.0 is ideal, to just above 0.4 for forests. “Many fjords have been cleaned up and a lot of industrial pollution has gone,” Deputy Environment Minister Heidi Soerensen told Reuters of improving water quality.
Forests have been hit by logging that has reduced numbers of old trees and amounts of rotting wood. Lack of predators such as wolves mean an imbalance with high numbers of red deer and elk.
Soerensen and other officials said the index could be a step towards valuing nature in statistics of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — a rethink of conventional economics.
“It can be a good tool to help national accounts…That work is not done by the index, but it is a very good starting point,” Soerensen said. Norway has an estimated 60,000 species, with animals ranging from lemmings to cod.
“Bioindicators” are used by many nations, such as the United States, to assess nature. The Netherlands, Britain and other European Union states, Mexico or Uganda are among those that have set up indicators to track diversity.
“Few countries have attempted to aggregate their indicators into a single index,” said Tristan Tyrrell of the British-based U.N.-backed Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. Norway has now gone furthest in giving full official endorsement.
