The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) stands as one of the most important and successful international conventions regarding the protection of global biodiversity. Originally signed in 1973, participating nations meet regularly to review species protected under the convention. These negotiations reveal conflicting attitudes to the natural world—the urge to protect versus the realities of humankind’s reliance on biological systems. CITES shows us how effective international cooperation regarding environmental issues can be while reminding us that such mechanisms have to date invariably included conflicts between preservation and exploitation at their vey core.

The Economics of Biodiversity (Dasgupta Review) is a remarkable document. Published in February 2021 by the UK Treasury Office, the review seeks to synthesize current thinking on economics and biodiversity into a framework for change regarding the triple threat of environmental degradation—pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate crisis. Potentially controversial for some environmentalists due to its use of language rooted in environmental economics and ecosystem services—a methodology for attaching economic value to the flow of benefits provided by natural systems to humankind—the review succeeds by moving further into ecological economics—a field that locates concepts of value in the fundamental tenets of the thermodynamic universe anterior to human socioeconomics. The Review advocates recognizing the original and ongoing value of natural assets potentially crucial for reconfiguring macro and microeconomic reporting and strategy in favour of true sustainability.

Concepts of the rights of nature—legal instruments for recognizing the rights of discrete components of the biosphere and allowing them representation—have been under development in a few places, but Ecuador was the first nation to enshrine these concepts in their national constitution. Rooted in indigenous perspectives regarding living in harmony with the natural world, these articles highlight the broad range of legal arguments that can be brought to bear on ecological matters and underscore divergent points of view in society where we regularly recognize the corporate rights of artificial non-human entities but fail to recognize similar rights of the natural world.

The existence of the marine protected area encompassing the Revillagigedo Archipelago off Mexico’s Pacific Coast already recognizes the importance of protecting not only local ecosystems but also the routes taken by transitory and migratory species. Work such as this (pre-print—not yet peer-certified as I post this) scientific paper (Lara-Lizardi et al, 2020) extending the understanding of species migration in the world’s ocean system along with calls to protect 50% of the earth’s surface bring forward questions of the limits and constraints of human development necessary to ensure a functioning biosphere in the Anthropocene.

This 2018 report published by business analysts McKinsey is striking for its optimism regarding what may be possible regarding a potential circular economy for plastics while simultaneously illustrating the massive expected impact of growth in consumption. The circular economy concept—vital for a future where we minimize the material throughput of society in order to minimize ecological impact —is shown to have great heft. Also shown is how, in the realm of plastics at least, growth in consumption will leave us manufacturing as much new material in 2050 as we do now even if all strategies for recycling are fully utilized. This conclusion underscores the need for a new economics that recognizes the full cost of environmental degradation, as well as full recognition for the value that the biosphere provides simply by existing; a necessary shift in order to tip the balance of economic incentives towards preservation and restoration of natural ecosystems.