"Protecting whales benefits everybody. Each great whale sequesters, on average, 33 tons of carbon, and they take that with them to the ocean floor... after they die. Their feces fertilize phytoplankton, which are the basis of all marine food webs and the source of oxygen for every other breath we take. Thanks to their ecological and economic services, each great whale is valued at over $2 million... The value of the world’s whale stock easily exceeds $1 trillion." https://atmos.earth/a-descendants-call-for-whale-legal-personhood/
@clockwooork I agree, and I think so does the author, if you read the whole piece. I think they are trying to speak the language of people who are looking for policies to sequester carbon, or have to weigh the economics of hunting or habitat maintenance. Speaking about nature in terms of financial benefit helps people fend off arguments to destroy something because it could bring economic value to do so.
On the other hand, I don’t think assigning monetary value to parts of our ecosystem is a healthy framework. It will lead to budgeting and other nasty transactional dynamics