What is natural capital?
Q: What is natural capital?
A: Natural capital is a metaphor for the mineral, plant, and animal formations of the Earth's biosphere when viewed as a means of production of oxygen, water filter, erosion preventer, or provider of other ecosystem services.
Q: How does traditional economic analysis view natural capital?
A: In a traditional economic analysis of the factors of production, natural capital would usually be understood as "land" and therefore something else than "capital" in its original sense.
Q: What benefits do humans have from nature?
A: Humans have many benefits from nature. Robert Costanza closely looked at 17 of them. These benefits are in some ways similar to those that owners of "capital" have as their capital produces more goods.
Q: What is an alternative to the traditional view of all non-human life?
A: An alternative to the traditional view of all non-human life is an approach to ecosystem valuation which sees nature as producing goods such as apples from an apple tree or automobiles from a factory.
Q: Is human knowledge and understanding about natural environment complete?
A: No, human knowledge and understanding about the natural environment is never complete and therefore we cannot yet know what natural capital means exactly.
Q: How did Robert Costanza look at benefits humans have from nature?
A: Robert Costanza closely looked at 17 different benefits humans have from nature.
