Countries must take urgent steps to value their natural capital
– such as forests, peatlands and coastal areas – as part of
their economic development, the World Bank has urged. Placing a
monetary value on natural ecosystems is a key step on the road
to “green” economic growth, according to the World Bank, which
published a report on green growth on Wednesday at a conference
in Seoul, Korea. By making such estimates, countries can develop
policies that ensure the pursuit of economic growth does not
occur at the expense of future growth potential, by destroying
natural assets such as water sources or polluting air, rivers
and soil. Rachel Kyte, vice president for sustainable
development at the bank, said that the patterns on which
economic growth had been achieved in recent decades were
unsustainable, because of the amount of environmental
degradation involved. She said: “At current rates, we are in
danger of undermining the basis on which growth has been
achieved in the last decades. We do not believe that cu