Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    The Mystery of How Quasicrystals Form

    October 14, 2025

    Motorola has a super-thin Air phone too

    October 14, 2025

    Programming in Assembly Is Brutal, Beautiful, and Maybe Even a Path to Better AI

    October 14, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » Wild Animals Should Be Paid for the Benefits They Provide Humanity
    Science

    Wild Animals Should Be Paid for the Benefits They Provide Humanity

    News RoomBy News RoomFebruary 14, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    We need to understand the value of nature if we want to protect it—and that should include paying ecosystems for keeping us alive, argues Ian Redmond, head of conservation for not-for-profit streaming platform Ecoflix and cofounder of Rebalance Earth, a company that aims to build a sustainable, resilient, and equitable economy. He’s trying to change the damaging equation where “if the minerals under the ground are worth more than the trees and the animals above the ground, then traditionally, the trees and the animals have to go.”

    Pricing nature’s benefits would help protect it, he suggests. Wildlife tourism shows that people are prepared to pay up to $1,500 simply to spend an hour in the company of an elephant in Rwanda, he points out—so tourists already know how valuable nature is. But what about local people? Filmmakers should share the profits of their wildlife films with those who protect or depend on the ecosystems they film.

    “The irony is that people who live in the developing world, where many of these documentaries are made, don’t get to see them because their national TV stations can’t afford to buy them,” he explains. “We should make people care about the wildlife in the countries where the wildlife lives.”

    And we should pay animals like elephants for their essential arboreal gardening, he argues. “Apes, elephants, and birds are seed-dispersal agents in tropical forests,” he adds. “They swallow seeds and deposit them in their droppings miles away.”

    This has a hugely beneficial effect locally and globally, because trees do so much more than just store carbon. A study in the Congo Basin found that the amount of wood in a forest where elephants still lived was up to 14 percent greater than one where elephants had died out. That basin sets up weather systems that ultimately produce rain in Britain and Europe.

    “Do you think any proportion of what you pay for your [electricity] goes to protect the elephants and the gorillas in the Congo Basin planting the trees that fill the hydro schemes in Scotland?” he says. “Not a penny. There is no valuation of that ecosystem’s service that every one of us benefits from.”

    Ralph Chami, formerly assistant director of the International Monetary Fund, calculated that the value an elephant provides the world during its life is worth around $1.75 million dollars per animal. “That’s roughly $30,000 a year, or $80 a day if the elephant were being paid for the service it’s providing the world,” he pointed out. “But, of course, no one’s paying that.”

    So, it’s time to pay the bill. “I want every gorilla, every orangutan, and every animal to be valued for what they do for the ecosystem, and for us clever humans to construct a system that allows that to happen,” he says. “At the last count, that was estimated at about $700 billion a year. It’s a lot of money. It’s not going to come out of the government’s coffers, it’s not going to come out of philanthropy, but it could come out of the global economy if we construct it thus.”

    This article appears in the March/April 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleIt’s time for Microsoft to build an Xbox Steam Deck
    Next Article Apple Pulls Popular Movie Piracy App Kimi From the App Store

    Related Posts

    The Mystery of How Quasicrystals Form

    October 14, 2025

    Europe Pledges $600 Million for Clean Energy Projects in Africa

    October 13, 2025

    5 More Physics Equations Everyone Should Know

    October 13, 2025

    Scientist Who Was Offline ‘Living His Best Life’ Stunned by Nobel Prize Win

    October 12, 2025

    Chaos, Confusion, and Conspiracies: Inside a Facebook Group for RFK Jr.’s Autism ‘Cure’

    October 11, 2025

    Autism Is Not a Single Condition and Has No Single Cause, Scientists Conclude

    October 9, 2025
    Our Picks

    Motorola has a super-thin Air phone too

    October 14, 2025

    Programming in Assembly Is Brutal, Beautiful, and Maybe Even a Path to Better AI

    October 14, 2025

    Discord blamed a vendor for its data breach — now the vendor says it was ‘not hacked’

    October 14, 2025

    ‘Happy Gilmore’ Producer Buys Spyware Maker NSO Group

    October 14, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    News

    California cracks down on ‘predatory’ early cancellation fees

    By News RoomOctober 14, 2025

    California has enacted new legislation that aims to limit companies from charging consumers “exorbitant” fees…

    New Rules Could Force Tesla to Redesign Its Door Handles. That’s Harder Than It Sounds

    October 14, 2025

    Gmail now uses AI to help you find meeting times

    October 14, 2025

    The latest Moto Razr Ultra foldable is an even better value at $999

    October 14, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.