Feed Podcast S3E10: Valuing nature in our economies

Environmental economist Adan L. Martinez-Cruz (Senior Lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), argues that markets are a fundamental aspect of human society. He suggests that assigning a monetary value to natural resources can provide environmental benefits and create economic incentives to achieve them. In this episode, we discuss concept of non-market valuation, consider whether nature has inherent value, and examine whether markets are the best way to ensure fairness in the cost of food for both consumers and producers.
About Adan Martinez Cruz
Adan L. Martinez-Cruz is a senior lecturer at the Department of Forest Economics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in the Umeå campus. He is the coordinator at the Faculty of Forest Sciences of SLU Global, an initiative that engages researchers across the Global South. And he is involved with SLU's Interdisciplinary Academy, and he is Board Member of the Latin American Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (LAERE).
Adan is an empirical economist focusing on non-market valuation applications. His publications reach a wider range of topics including impact evaluation on non-linear variables, expert elicitation, energy efficiency, marine conservation programs, transportation policies, inequality and poverty. His training is as an agricultural and resource economist by the University of Maryland, College Park. After completing his PhD, Adan spent three years as a postdoc in ETH-Zurich’s Department of Management, Technology, and Economics. And before joining SLU’s Department of Forest Economics, he spent two year as an assistant professor in CIDE-RC’s Department of Economics.
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One of the vulnerabilities I see with the idea that infering nature’s value through market is positive, is the lack of connection with nature, the lack of understanding of its importance and the interests behind it. One good use for it, I’d say, is as a diagnosis tool for developing educational services.