Season 1
Nature Inc. is a British documentary television series created by Robert Lamb and produced by One Planet Pictures for BBC World which attempts to put a monetary value on services the Earth's living systems deliver to our households, our businesses and to national treasuries.
The series premiered worldwide on BBC World on Friday 13 June 2008, airing in South Africa at 21h30. There are six 30-minute episodes in the first season.
Repeats
Saturdays: 06h30
Mondays: 11h30
Tuesdays: 17h30
Wednesdays: 03h30, 09h30
Synopsis
Nature Inc. is a new series putting a price tag on the planet's billion year old life support system. It'll show how destroying nature is costing us cold, hard cash.
Nature Inc. takes its lead from economists who have worked out that ecosystem services are worth more than the grand total of all the world's national economies.
In this view, our global economy is a subdivision of nature.
Some sceptics say putting a dollar value on nature is an absurd exercise in political correctness. Others believe that it's dangerous to reduce conservation to a matter of a
bang for your buck.
But everyone agrees conventional economics leaves nature off the books. And, as Nature Inc. shows, it's costing us dearly.
Six eye-opening episodes will reveal just how much nature is worth to our economy: bees worth up to $20-billion to agriculture in North America; preserved watersheds that provide renewable power and clean water to vital industries; coral reefs that provide $375-billion in goods and services; mangroves that save lives and invasive species that cost $137-billion a year to the US alone.
Nature Inc. is seeking out a new breed of investor – the biosphere bankers. The hard-headed types who view investment in sustainable development as good business strategy.
We find them in governments, in mainstream banks and corporations, in businesses across the globe. They believe they can make money out of saving the planet.
Stories in the first season show how...
...bats and bees contribute billions of dollars to world agriculture
...invasive species from mussels to pythons may be doing as much economic damage as climate change
...a new breed of bankers is making sustainable profits from sustainable investment
...hillside forests are worth more than water purification plants costing millions
Every episode ends with a leading figure from the world of business and politics giving their vision for a future where nature's assets are properly valued.
Nature Inc. is produced in English and French. The series is scheduled to run on BBC World News until at least 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity.
The series was developed with the support of the Secretariat of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity.
Episodes
Episode 1: A Fruit and Nut Case
Nature Inc. goes to the almond groves of California where to discover the mysterious crash in the bee population threatens the $15 billion agri-industry in the USA.
The team talk to producers and scientists about how they – and the bees – are coping.
Then it's off to Ghana to report on the vital role that persecuted fruit bats play in the multi-billion dollar chocolate and cosmetics industry.
Episode 2: Trees on Tap
Every year we spend billions of dollars on pumping and purifying water for the world's ever-expanding cities. But why bother building a desalination plant, when a forest will do the same job for a fraction of the price?
Nature Inc goes to New York, Ecuador and Jordan to see how the authorities are waking up to the potential.
How they are protecting ecosystems, saving a fortune and safeguarding two of our most precious assets: water and biodiversity.
Episode 3: The Aliens Have Landed!
This week, a keyhole into the price nations are paying for failing to stop species invasion.
According to one calculation, the economic damage from invading alien species might be costing the global economy more than any other form of environmental disruption – $1.4 trillion a year.
This episode of Nature Inc. is a keyhole into the price nations are paying for failing to stop species invasion.
We feature a cast of leading villains: cane toads in Australia; zebra mussels and the Burmese python in the USA and love grass in Brazil.
Episode 4: Coral Cashpoint
Nature Inc investigates a claim that our coral reefs are worth $30-billion a year. We go diving on the Barrier Reef, the Maldives and to the bottom of the North Sea to find out how coral reefs supply 500 million of us with food and work.
But we are destroying the reefs so quickly, they could vanish entirely in less than a hundred years.
Episode 5: Slippery Slopes
The UK Government's Report by former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern advocates a one per cent investment in combating global warming to save a much bigger bill a few decades down the line.
In this fifth episode, Nature Inc. goes to the Andes and finds glaciers are melting so fast that scientists say most could disappear in 25 years.
But millions of people in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru rely on these glaciers for their drinking water, agriculture and electricity – their economies will be decimated.
Their experience backs the dire warning of Stern and others... but where is the investment coming from to avoid climate change-induced economic collapse? And what are the strategies?
Episode 6: Bloom or Bust
In this sixth episode, we look at the new breed of investors who are making substantial and sustainable profits by going long and investing in keeping ecosystems healthy.
We uncover the ultra-slick carbon trading market, which is predicted to be worth $300-billion a year before the end of the decade; the multi-million dollar trade in endangered wetlands; and how investment banks are buying entire islands and rainforests to make huge future profits.
Saving the planet is no longer just about ethics – it's becoming big business.