Ecosystem accounts provide an understanding of ecosystems and their relationships to the economy and the overall value of ecosystem goods and services. Effective management of the environment must consider the extent and underlying condition of ecosystems over time, as well as the range of benefits they provide and the economic value of those benefits to different stakeholder groups. Ecosystem accounting supports management decisions to ensure delivery of sustained value from our environmental assets.
Specifically, data in ecosystem accounts can help address several fundamental questions for policy and planning, such as:
- What environmental assets are present and what state are they in? How does this change over time?
- What benefits does the environment provide? How are these received by beneficiaries?
- What is the economic value of these benefits? How is this value distributed across the population?
For ecosystem accounts to be a valuable addition to Government and organisational policy and planning strategy, they should be embedded into the decision-making process, and updated on an annual basis both to provide current data and to monitor trends over time. A partnership of EFTEC, the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the New Economics Foundation, and the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change with Darwin Plus funding from the UK Government, have initiated this process in The Virgin Islands.
British Virgin Islands Ecosystem Accounting 2019 Ecosystem Account
British Virgin Islands Ecosystem Accounting 2020 Ecosystem Account