Number: 2011-05
WHEREAS, one significant and far-reaching threat to wildlife is the continued loss of habitat; and
WHEREAS, loss of habitat is one result of environmentally inappropriate economic development; and
WHEREAS, economic development proceeds in an effort to increase human well-being, as measured by Gross Domestic Product; and
WHEREAS, economists have known and warned us for decades that Gross Domestic Product should not be used as a measure of economic well-being, because it measures the gross volume of monetary transactions rather than actual, delivered well-being; and
WHEREAS, a significant part of what GDP measures consists of defensive and remedial expenditures that do not contribute to well-being, but instead are directed to repairing or preventing losses caused by economic development itself; and
WHEREAS, these expenditures have been estimated to range between $2.8 and $3.6 trillion a year, a fifth to a quarter of all domestic expenditures; and
WHEREAS, this shortcoming of GDP is vividly illustrated in the expense of cleaning up and otherwise remediating the damage from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion and spill, with British Petroleum alone spending $11.2 billion for that purpose, all of which counts as a positive contribution to GDP; and
WHEREAS, one of the main ways that GDP misleads when used as a measure of well-being is that it systematically ignores the loss of ecosystem services and counts costs associated with ecosystem damage as economically beneficial; and
WHEREAS, GDP does not count the depletion of finite nonrenewable natural resources as an expenditure, but rather treats it as a gain; and
WHEREAS, numerous nations and regions of the world are implementing changes in their economic accounting systems to repair flaws in GDP, incorporating elements from such alternative measures as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), the Green Gross Domestic Product (GGDP), and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), among others; and
WHEREAS, the National Wildlife Federation recognizes that healthy ecosystems are essential to maintaining healthy populations of both wildlife and humans; and
WHEREAS the mission of protecting and preserving wildlife is made more difficult when loss of healthy ecosystems is counted as a positive economic good;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, at its annual meeting assembled April 14-16, 2011 in Washington, D.C., urges the President, the Congress, and state Governors and legislatures to take immediate steps to redesign the use of the Gross Domestic Product as an indicator of economic well-being, and to take all necessary action to develop and implement a system of economic accounting that gives a more accurate measure of overall economic and ecological well-being; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the new or modified system of national accounts should treat as cost or debit items the loss and degradation of ecosystem services, including the service of providing habitat for wildlife and the expenditure of finite nonrenewable natural resources.