NRA plays an important role in the chain of sustainable development by providing valuable information on the value of natural resources and the cost of protecting these environmental assets. Let us discuss its relevance for Mother Earth.
The real wealth of a nation cannot be estimated if one ignores the provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural contributions of its natural resources and the ecosystem services these provide. Because of their vital importance, natural resources and ecosystem services must be managed with care: this requires that they should be "monetized", to the extent possible, so we might arrive at better measurements of income and both guide economic policies and encourage more sustainable use of natural capital.
Research Environmental and Natural Resource Accounting
Valuation of ecosystem services is in the current scenario. As we are targeting to achieve sustainable development goals, it's imperative to know the value of our natural resources to for better management
Sanjeev Bansal , one argument is that monetizing ecosystem services places money values on natural systems making them anthropocentric and establishes values for example to 'replace' them. However, many ecosystems are tied together and another argument is that understanding the underlying relationships and 'tipping points' is important to preserve their larger role in the natural world.
NRA is relevant in today's world where climate change is a hot topic. It should be embraced by everyone especially by developing countries so as to ensure sustainability of our natural resources.
National Resource accounting has had its significance earlier when the resources were valued highly. Developmental activities all around have impacted them pretty seriously and a comparison of current NRA would be understandably be discouraging. However, that does not prevent us from estimating the same. NRA is the strength of ecosystem and demonstration of co-existence of both plants and animals.
NRA is a "rationalistic" tool. But ecosystems are complex systems with complicated feedbacks and thresholds. NRA has a place, if the researcher and the client/user understands the limitations and recognises the existence of numerous elements of an ecosystem that cannot be measured.
In any case, the accelerating breakdown of ecosystems and accelerating climate change will overwhelm many such calculations.
Dear Sanjeev Bansal
These three scientific contributions that I put for your consideration show the importance of Natural Resource Accounting.
- A study on atmospheric environmental resource accounting: A case of SO2 capacity resources in Chinese provinces
- Economic justification methods for evaluating energy management systems.
- Hybrid governance and performances of environmental accounting
I consider that the entities of the Public Sector have natural resources within their assets, but they also have their liabilities due to current depletion and then there is a need to present them correctly in the financial statements so that they are reasonable; and, in the meantime, the need appears
to use an accounting methodology for natural resources that facilitates the preparation and presentation of reasonable financial statements of the Public Sector. Said methodology must consider certain procedures, such as the
recognition, valuation or measurement; as well as the accounting record, and the presentation of the information on natural resources in the financial statements, which, having been formulated and presented within the framework of the International Accounting Standards for the Public Sector, will be reasonable, that is, reliable, trustworthy , understandable and timely.
NRA is quite an interesting field. But, using standardized formula in arriving at the value of resources is quite tough; and I don't expect universal consensus on how the valuation is arrived at. Because the way communities see resources differs. In many traditional societies, the social, cultural and even spiritual/ religious angles attached to resources;makes it a bit difficult to arrrive at proper values. Howbeit, NRA should form an integral part of study and analyses before development/extraction of resources are embarked upon.
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