Integrating Natural Capital into National Accounts: Three Decades of Promise and Challenge

Economists and ecologists have worked for decades on measuring sustainability by supplementing or adjusting traditional economic indicators such as GDP. Given the threats to humanity from climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss, it is vital to incorporate values of natural capital into national economic decision-making. This review focuses on how natural capital applications, historically applied from local to global scales, address national-scale concerns. However, natural capital data and accounts have been only partially developed in most countries, given a lack of common metrics and monetary values. Existing accounts are often incomplete in both the types of natural capital and ecosystems they include (e.g., water, land, different ecosystem types) and the values they measure (e.g., market vs. nonmarket values). While it is important to continue work to embed natural capital into national economic accounts, the need for practical tools to analyze environmental problems is more urgent. We review alternative options for incorporating natural capital into national-scale decision-making and make recommendations for countries where the data, capacity, and political will to conduct formal natural capital accounting are lacking

Model Ensembles of Ecosystem Services Fill Global Certainty and Capacity Gaps

Sustaining ecosystem services (ES) critical to human wellbeing is hindered by many practitioners lacking access to ES models (‘the capacity gap’) or knowledge of the accuracy of available models (‘the certainty gap’), especially in the world’s poorer regions. We developed ensembles of multiple models at an unprecedented global scale for five ES of high policy relevance. Ensembles were 2-14% more accurate than individual models. Ensemble accuracy was not correlated with proxies for research capacity – indicating accuracy is distributed equitably across the globe and that countries less able to research ES suffer no accuracy penalty. By making these ES ensembles and associated accuracy estimates freely available, we provide globally consistent ES information that can support policy and decision making in regions with low data availability or low capacity for implementing complex ES models. Thus, we hope to reduce the capacity and certainty gaps impeding local to global-scale movement towards ES sustainability

Mapping the planet’s critical natural assets

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems and processes that underpin human wellbeing is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we define critical natural assets as the natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and we map the global locations of these critical natural assets at 2 km resolution. Critical natural assets for maintaining local-scale NCP (12 of the 14 NCP) account for 30% of total global land area and 24% of national territorial waters, while 44% of land area is required to also maintain two global-scale NCP (carbon storage and moisture recycling). These areas overlap substantially with cultural diversity (areas containing 96% of global languages) and biodiversity (covering area requirements for 73% of birds and 66% of mammals). At least 87% of the world’s population live in the areas benefitting from critical natural assets for local-scale NCP, while only 16% live on the lands containing these assets. Many of the NCP mapped here are left out of international agreements focused on conserving species or mitigating climate change, yet this analysis shows that explicitly prioritizing critical natural assets and the NCP they provide could simultaneously advance development, climate and conservation goals.We thank all the participants of two working groups hosted by Conservation International and the Natural Capital Project for their insights and intellectual contributions. For further advice or assistance, we thank A. Adams, K. Brandon, K. Brauman, A. Cramer, G. Daily, J. Fisher, R. Gould, L. Mandle, J. Montgomery, A. Rodewald, D. Rossiter, E. Selig, A. Vogl and T. M. Wright. The two working groups that provided the foundation for this analysis were funded by support from the Marcus and Marianne Wallenberg Foundation to the Natural Capital Project (R.C.-K. and R.P.S.) and the Betty and Gordon Moore to Conservation International (R.A.N. and P.M.C.)

Hernia fibroblasts lack β-estradiol induced alterations of collagen gene expression

BACKGROUND: Estrogens are reported to increase type I and type III collagen deposition and to regulate Metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2) expression. These proteins are reported to be dysregulated in incisional hernia formation resulting in a significantly decreased type I to III ratio. We aimed to evaluate the β-estradiol mediated regulation of type I and type III collagen genes as well as MMP-2 gene expression in fibroblasts derived from patients with or without history of recurrent incisional hernia disease. We compared primary fibroblast cultures from male/female subjects without/without incisional hernia disease. RESULTS: Incisional hernia fibroblasts (IHFs) revealed a decreased type I/III collagen mRNA ratio. Whereas fibroblasts from healthy female donors responded to β-estradiol, type I and type III gene transcription is not affected in fibroblasts from males or affected females. Furthermore β-estradiol had no influence on the impaired type I to III collagen ratio in fibroblasts from recurrent hernia patients. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that β-estradiol does not restore the imbaired balance of type I/III collagen in incisional hernia fibroblasts. Furthermore, the individual was identified as an independent factor for the β-estradiol induced alterations of collagen gene expression. The observation of gender specific β-estradiol-dependent changes of collagen gene expression in vitro is of significance for future studies of cellular response

Happy Aged People Are All Alike, While Every Unhappy Aged Person Is Unhappy in Its Own Way

Aging of the world's population represents one of the most remarkable success stories of medicine and of humankind, but it is also a source of various challenges. The aim of the collaborative cross-cultural European study of adult well being (ESAW) is to frame the concept of aging successfully within a causal model that embraces physical health and functional status, cognitive efficacy, material security, social support resources, and life activity. Within the framework of this project, we show here that the degree of heterogeneity among people who view aging in a positive light is significantly lower than the degree of heterogeneity of those who hold a negative perception of aging. We base this conclusion on our analysis of a survey involving 12,478 people aged 50 to 90 from six West European countries. We treat the survey database as a bipartite network in which individual respondents are linked to the actual answers they provide. Taking this perspective allows us to construct a projected network of respondents in which each link indicates a statistically validated similarity of answers profile between the connected respondents, and to identify clusters of individuals independently of demographics. We show that mental and physical well-being are key factors determining a positive perception of aging. We further observe that psychological aspects, like self-esteem and resilience, and the nationality of respondents are relevant aspects to discriminate among participants who indicate positive perception of aging

Ageism in the third age

In the developed world, later life has brought more opportunities to contribute to society and pursue personal goals outside the role of paid work, combined with less stigma and greater recognition of the worth of older people. These values do not necessarily extend to the “oldest old” where some people in the fourth age (people 80 years old and over) continue to face increasing stigma and societal stereotypes from those in the third age (people 60–79 years old). Ageism between these two cohorts is rarely discussed in the literature. Potential ageism involves stereotypical perceptions of the oldest old and may prove detrimental to those transitioning from the third to the fourth age if a resultant resistance to maintain their engagement and independence into older age occurs. This chapter explores the subtleties of these inter-cohort ageist discourses particularly from a health and social care perspective and considers the implications for transitions of older people between the third and fourth age. It addresses the challenges and adjustments needed to ensure continuing and inclusive engagement in society, in order to support independence to grow old without the fear of discrimination

The choice of self-rated health measures matter when predicting mortality: evidence from 10 years follow-up of the Australian longitudinal study of ageing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Self-rated health (SRH) measures with different wording and reference points are often used as equivalent health indicators in public health surveys estimating health outcomes such as healthy life expectancies and mortality for older adults. Whilst the robust relationship between SRH and mortality is well established, it is not known how comparable different SRH items are in their relationship to mortality over time. We used a dynamic evaluation model to investigate the sensitivity of time-varying SRH measures with different reference points to predict mortality in older adults over time.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used seven waves of data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (1992 to 2004; N = 1733, 52.6% males). Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between three time-varying SRH measures (global, age-comparative and self-comparative reference point) with mortality in older adults (65+ years).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After accounting for other mortality risk factors, poor global SRH ratings increased mortality risk by 2.83 times compared to excellent ratings. In contrast, the mortality relationship with age-comparative and self-comparative SRH was moderated by age, revealing that these comparative SRH measures did not independently predict mortality for adults over 75 years of age in adjusted models.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We found that a global measure of SRH not referenced to age or self is the best predictor of mortality, and is the most reliable measure of self-perceived health for longitudinal research and population health estimates of healthy life expectancy in older adults. Findings emphasize that the SRH measures are not equivalent measures of health status.</p