BANGLADESH is increasingly being told that nature has an economic value. Forests store carbon, wetlands regulate floods, mangroves protect coastlines and biodiversity supports fisheries, agriculture and tourism. Across policy discussions, development planning and financial reform debates, terms such as “natural capital,” “ecosystem services,” and “biodiversity finance” are gaining traction. Yet amid this growing enthusiasm for monetising nature, a fundamental question remains insufficiently addressed: whose values are being counted and whose lived realities are being left out?
The logic behind biodiversity economics is not without merit. Conventional economic systems have long treated nature as an unlimited free resource, encouraging extraction without adequately accounting for environmental degradation. Assigning economic value to ecosystems can help reveal their true contribution to national development and strengthen the case for conservation investment. Bangladesh’s engagement with global frameworks such as the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) reflects this shift towards recognising ecosystems as productive assets requiring long-term protection and financing.
However, the problem emerges when valuation becomes detached from context. Monetary figures attached to wetlands or forests may create an illusion of precision, yet they rarely capture the layered relationships between ecosystems and human life. A mangrove forest, for instance, is not merely a bundle of ecosystem services. It is also a space of livelihood, cultural identity, local knowledge systems and climate resilience. Reducing such complexity to a single economic number risks flattening realities that are ecological, social and political at the same time.
This tension is particularly evident in Bangladesh, where biodiversity is not abstract but deeply embedded in survival. The Sundarbans support fisheries, forestry-based livelihoods, coastal protection and tourism. Haor wetlands sustain millions through seasonal agriculture, fishing and informal employment. Rivers remain central to food systems, transport and domestic use. When these ecosystems deteriorate, the impact is not confined to environmental loss alone; it manifests in shrinking incomes, weakened food security, increased displacement and heightened vulnerability to climate shocks. In this sense, ecosystems function as essential economic infrastructure in their own right.
For this reason, biodiversity economics must move beyond aggregate valuation and engage more seriously with questions of governance and distribution. The benefits derived from natural resources are rarely shared evenly. In many contexts, powerful actors capture disproportionate gains while local communities bear the costs of environmental degradation. Wetland leasing arrangements, commercial overextraction, unregulated tourism and land-use conversion often generate profits for a few while eroding the livelihoods of those most dependent on ecosystems. Any meaningful approach to biodiversity economics must therefore ask not only how much nature is worth, but also who controls it, who benefits from it and who absorbs the losses when it is degraded.
These questions become even more urgent in the context of emerging biodiversity finance mechanisms. Globally, instruments such as ecosystem service payments, biodiversity credits and conservation investment models are being promoted as innovative solutions to funding gaps. Bangladesh is also exploring such mechanisms to mobilise resources for environmental protection. Yet financial innovation, on its own, does not guarantee equitable outcomes. Without transparency, accountability and meaningful community participation, biodiversity finance risks reinforcing existing inequalities or creating new forms of exclusion. Conservation cannot be sustainable if local communities are treated merely as beneficiaries rather than as rights-holding stakeholders.
There are, nevertheless, encouraging developments. Some recent initiatives in Bangladesh, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas such as Tanguar Haor, have begun to emphasise community-based resource management. These approaches integrate scientific assessment with local stewardship, recognising that conservation outcomes improve when communities are directly involved in decision-making and benefit-sharing. Such models highlight an important shift: biodiversity protection is most effective when it is grounded not only in ecological science but also in social legitimacy.
At the same time, the effectiveness of biodiversity economics depends heavily on the quality of evidence underpinning it. Valuation exercises must be transparent, methodologically robust and context-sensitive. Policymakers require reliable data on fisheries productivity, forest resources, tourism income, disaster-risk reduction benefits, pollution mitigation and ecosystem-dependent livelihoods. Equally important is data on land ownership, access rights, gendered inequalities and the differential impacts of environmental change on marginalised communities. Without this depth of information, natural capital accounting risks becoming a technical exercise that produces impressive figures without meaningful policy insight.
Ultimately, biodiversity economics should not be reduced to a tool for assigning prices to nature. It should function as a broader analytical framework for understanding the relationships between ecosystems, governance structures, livelihoods and social justice. Bangladesh’s forests, rivers, wetlands and coastal zones are not simply environmental assets awaiting monetisation. They are foundational systems that sustain food security, cultural heritage, economic resilience and social stability.
If biodiversity economics is to meaningfully inform policy, it must move beyond valuation alone and confront the deeper questions of power, equity and accountability that shape environmental outcomes. Only then can the economic language of nature reflect not just abstract worth, but the lived realities and interdependencies of the people who depend on it most.
Dr Makhan Lal Dutta is Chairman and CEO of Harvesting Knowledge Consultancy.
