The Resource Assessment Commission's economic analysis indicated that logging should not go ahead in the national estate areas of the south-east forests. It is because of instances such as this that environmental economists and some conservationists believe that if the values of biodiversity protection could be converted into monetary terms and compared with the benefits of exploiting those biological resources, policy-makers would be more likely to make decisions in favour of maintaining biodiversity. It may be for this reason that the Forestry Commission of NSW dislikes and avoids cost-benefit analyses.

The question remains, should these economic methods be supported for the pragmatic reason that it can help the conservationist? Economic analysis is, of course, a sword that can cut both ways: it can also favour developments with large environmental impacts if the profits to be made are also very large. As was noted in chapter 8, it will usually not be environmentalists who control how the analysis is done. It is a risky strategy to embrace methods that make money and species interchangeable.

This approach has also been criticised on several other grounds, the first being that species can not be valued. This is because our society is ignorant of most species that exist, the role they play in their ecosystems, how they interact, and the use or value they might be to humans now and in the future. David Ehrenfeld, a US professor of biology, also asks 'How do we deal with values of organisms whose very existence escapes our notice?' and 'What sort of value do we assign to the loss to the community when a whole generation of its children can never experience the streams in their environment as amenities?' (1988, p. 215).

Those in favour of valuation admit the difficulty of getting an accurate dollar value, but answer that 'even a partial valuation in monetary terms of the benefits of conserving biological resources can provide at least a lower limit to the full range of benefits'. They are therefore 'important in crystallizing those issues involving implicit value judgements that may otherwise be ignored' (McNeely et al. 1990, pp. 26&endash;7).

Ehrenfeld points out that attaching a dollar value to a species still does not guarantee its survival. He points to a study done by a mathematician in 1973 which showed that 'it was economically preferable to kill every blue whale left in the oceans as fast as possible and reinvest the profits in growth industries rather than to wait for the species to recover to the point where it could sustain an annual catch' (1988, p. 213).

Indeed, the Business Council of Australia says 'biological diversity can yield some unpredictable benefits in the form of new products or processes at some time in the future' (1991, pp. 6& 7). But it argues that this value should be measured against the value of economic developments which reduce biological diversity. For the council, uncertainty about the impacts of a development on biological diversity is not a reason for stopping a development. It says that there is no guarantee in nature that particular species will survive. Development will in fact provide the money for research into biodiversity. It is such research that will provide the means to ensure the survival of threatened species.

In contrast, the major Australian environmental groups argue that:

Maintenance of the natural environment, including the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecological integrity, should be a fundamental constraint on all economic activity. An ecologically sustainable society would adopt an approach to biodiversity which conserved all species, their genetic diversity and their habitats … (ed. Hare 1990, p. 7)

They argue that this is necessary for human survival because 'human societies rely on biodiversity to provide food, medicine, fibres and other resources', and natural ecosystems provide services such as the assimilation of waste, and the provision of vital natural resources such as fresh water and a healthy living environment.

Norton uses the argument that biodiversity is necessary for survival to argue against the placing of dollar values on species so that they might be weighed against such things as 'the value of real estate around reservoirs and kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power' (1988, p. 204). He compares such reasoning to hospital administrators trying to work out which parts of a life-support system can be disconnected and sold to raise money for the hospital. They do not really know which part is necessary for the continued operation of the support system, and have to guess which parts will not be missed.

It is one thing to treat the valuation of biodiversity as a guessing game or as a set of very interesting theoretical problems in welfare economics. It is quite another thing to suggest that the guesses we make are to be the basis of decision making that will affect the functioning of the ecosystems on which we and our children will depend for life. (1988, p. 204)

Ehrenfeld (1988) dislikes this argument about needing biodiversity for human survival. He claims that some of the most loved and most threatened species can be totally unnecessary for ecological survival. Such species might include the panda, the condor or even the koala.

These arguments tend to be human-centred, or anthropocentric. The idea of valuing species and biodiversity in terms of what they are worth to humans (the instrumental or utilitarian approach) has been criticised by those who believe that animals and plants have an intrinsic value. Deep ecologists, for example, argue that humans are a part of nature, not separate from and superior to nature. They argue that all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom and reach their full potential. All plants, animals and organisms have a value in themselves that is independent of their usefulness to humans. As a result of this thinking, they believe that humans have no right to reduce the diversity of life except to satisfy vital needs, such as food and shelter. (Devall & Sessions 1985, pp. 65& 70)

Nevertheless, it is humans they have to appeal to if biodiversity is to be preserved. Ehrenfeld argues that conservation of biodiversity requires changes in public morality. He says that 'the public must come to understand the inherent wrongness of the destruction of biological diversity' (1988, p. 215).

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