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We must move beyond the mercantile mindset of perceiving everything only in terms of numbers, where “more” or “bigger” necessarily mean “better.”.. Traveling through the jungles of Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon, it is difficult not to feel stunned by the amount of biological diversity in these forests. Writing about the experience, the difficulty lies in not succumbing to the exhausted turns of phrase and repetitive metaphors commonly used in attempting to depict the biological riches of these ecosystems.
In the name of conservation, Nature has been turned into an economic asset and, in many instances, its usefulness for humans has become the only value that we can bring to light for the common citizen. What is the economic value of natural resources, or how much would it cost to replace natural ecosystem services? If we are to reverse or at least attenuate the negative impacts of our civilization upon the environment, we must move beyond the mercantile mindset of perceiving everything only in terms of numbers, where “more” or “bigger” necessarily mean “better.”
