Valuation of carbon services produced by wild animals finances conservation

Abstract

Filling the global biodiversity financing gap will require significant investments from financial markets, which demand credible valuations of ecosystem services and natural capital. However, current valuation approaches discourage investment in conservation because their results cannot be verified using market-determined prices. Here, we bridge the gap between finance and conservation by valuing only wild animals carbon services for which market prices exist. By projecting the future path of carbon service production using a spatially-explicit demographic model, we place a credible value on the carbon-capture services produced by African forest elephants. If elephants were protected, their services would be worth $35.9 billion (24.3-41.2) and store 377 MtC (318-388) across tropical Africa. Our methodology can also place lower bounds on the social cost of nature degradation. Poaching would result in $10-14 billion of lost carbon services. Our methodology enables the integration of animal services into global financial markets with major implications for conservation, local socio-economies, and conservation.