Can we quantify TiME’s contribution to the world?
The response to this question is likely to follow one of two main approaches. Some would argue that even if we can put a dollar figure on TiME’s work, we should not; some things should not be measured in money, and attempting to do so seems to deny the notion that these things — including biodiversity conservation and education — have innate value.
How can life, any life, be measured in currency? Can any number, no matter how high, do justice to the worth of a living being — and even more so, to the survival of an entire species? Many of us are drawn to TiME because we genuinely believe in the intrinsic value of saving species. We share this Earth with other creatures, and their beauty, vibrancy, life, is what makes this world worth living in.
On the other hand, the ecological crisis that we live amidst is unfortunately vast and hard to navigate. We cannot save every threatened habitat we would want to. Calculating economic value in a thoughtful, critical manner can make sure our limited resources go where they can be most beneficial. Furthermore, emphasizing the benefit of conservation to humans may allow TiME to reach new audiences, appealing also to those who do not share this love for nature in its own right.
Since its inception, TiME’s goal has been to maximize return on investment by strategically choosing to conserve critical biodiversity hotspots to save endangered species, provide a wildlife corridor or expand an existing reserve, and/or benefit a local community. It is not accidental that TiME’s goals are multiple and intertwined: by crowdsourcing and offering every member an equal vote, we are a democratic organization; by allowing members to vote for the habitat they want to protect, we encourage engagement and familiarity with the biodiversity hotspot and its species; and by implementing the model in schools, we educate young people about environmental issues, critical thinking and democracy.
A project supported by the University of Haifa and carried out by Yoni Gavish, Yaniv Reingewertz and Uri Shanas, TiME’s founder, set out to determine a way to quantify the return on each dollar invested by TiME to conserve land in a biodiversity hotspot. Since measuring can be a costly endeavour itself, the goal was to develop a system that allows TiME to estimate the value efficiently and without the assistance of experts.
Ecosystem services were chosen by these researchers as the main target for quantification, and they comprise various measurable ways that conservation contributes to humanity. Ecosystem services are often divided into four types: provisional, cultural, regulating and habitat services provided to the local community and the global population.
Provisional services include local benefits: the conservation of a habitat often means that the local population does not have to rely on outside sources for clean water, food, building materials and other necessities. While not usually considered as part of the ecosystem services, conservation can also provide locals with green sources of income close to home — such as working as rangers in a reserve. In turn, the added income often helps marginalized communities access better education and benefit from modern healthcare.
Cultural benefits derive from the immaterial importance of nature to local groups. Indigenous groups often rely on the natural environment for living and for performing rituals and upholding their culture, and it is therefore critical for their wellbeing and survival (see, for example, how the Embera Chami’s culture is linked to their natural environment, which TiME is hoping to protect). The preservation of different human societies is, once again, justified on its own merit, and is also crucial to science and to our understanding of who we are as a species. TiME’s educational program, which allows students to understand different habitats, is another example of societal value derived from conservation.
Regulating services include those that help protect life on Earth — indeed, conservation is a key component in preventing natural disasters. For example, the 2004 tsunami, which took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across Asia, was made worse by the loss of the mangrove ecosystem in the Indian Ocean that naturally acts as a barrier between land and sea. Forests help prevent soil erosion and landslides; wetlands regulate and purify water; and tropical forests regulate the water cycle, helping in the prevention of droughts, which — according to the United Nations — are the leading cause of human death by natural disaster over the last 50 years. Finally, and perhaps closer to home for many of you, conservation can help prevent future pandemics, such as COVID-19, by reducing the movement of species outside of their natural habitats and therefore forestalling the spread and mutation of diseases.
Finally, habitat services include those that people can receive from the wildlife that reside in it. For example, if the habitat provides a nesting spot for birds that in turn prey on pests, it assists local agriculture and the overall health of the ecosystem.
After providing TiME’s partners’ land managers on site with easy-to-fill questionnaires regarding the site’s biodiversity, the reserve’s annual revenue and services provided to the local community, among others, the collected data was analysed together with the cost of land purchase and the predicted fate of the site if not purchased for conservation. The results, including inflation, are staggering: overall, every US dollar invested by TiME in a habitat returns a value of $212.80, of which $120.60 goes to the local community.
While this method is rough, it is easy and cheap to implement, and can help us assess in tangible, measurable ways just how beneficial TiME is, not only to the Earth and the non-human species in it, but also to humanity. The method is scalable and can be refined and adjusted. According to Shanas, the method will not only help TiME choose which habitats to prioritise for conservation, but will also provide TiME members with more information to help them vote for the next threatened habitat to protect.
Ultimately, the hope is that the model’s implementation by TiME can serve as a database of knowledge for other organizations working on conservation, promoting a critical, science-based approach to conservation — balancing our desire to preserve nature for its own sake and effectively measuring and monitoring our contribution to local as well as global human communities.
We thank Yoni Gavish for his help in preparing this article.
Çelik, H.E. “Forests And Natural Disasters.” In Integration of Information for Environmental Security, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security, edited by Coskun, H.G., Cigizoglu, H.K., Maktav, M.D. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.
Meyer, Kristin. “Protecting nature to minimize disaster risks.” United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Published October 31, 2023. https://www.undrr.org/news/protecting-nature-minimize-disaster-risks
O’Connor, John C. et al. “Forests buffer against variations in precipitation.” Global Change Biology 27:19 (October 2021): 4686-4696.
Quarto, Alfredo. “Mangrove restoration—natural protection from natural disasters.” Biodiversity 6:1 (2005): 3-12.
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