Fishes, 24 March 2019, Teahupoo, Tahiti, French Polynesia. © Ben Thouard
Markus Mu?ller discusses how the ocean, biodiversity, the global economy and the world of finance are inextricably linked ? and proposes what should be done now to make business fit for a nature-compliant future
Markus Müller
Economics is deeply bound to nature. Portfolio managers in finance often think they invented the idea of diversification. I hate to disappoint them, but it was created by nature first. Nature, like economics, invented diversification for risk protection and to provide the breeding ground for development. If everything stayed the same, there would be no development ? this is true for nature and true for economics.
According to some estimates, half of global GDP is directly attributable to nature. Some industries, such as construction, agriculture and manufacturing, use nature?s output to create economic output, and are therefore heavily nature-dependent. The biodiversity of nature is also essential to economics, because the wide assortment of living things provides crucial ecosystem services to the economy. These services range from providing fresh air and clean water to producing food. Nature provides everything that humans consume. Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine
The ocean plays a big part in biodiversity, as two-thirds of our planet is covered with water and more than 95 per cent of that is ocean. If we allow our ocean ecosystems to be depleted, we create risks...