The Truckee River Canyon. Credit: Michael Conner.

Natural capital isn't something we hear about very often, and it certainly isn't a new idea. Aldo Leopold and other conservationists recognized the role that natural ecosystems play in our lives as early as the 1940's. But understanding and measuring that role hasn't been easy. That's where the Natural Capital Project comes in.

The project focuses on ecosystem services – the natural processes that ecosystems provide and humans benefit from. Those include how forests filter our drinking water, how wetlands provide protection from storm surges, and how bees and other pollinators support our agricultural industry. While these services may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to nature, researchers are discovering that they're vital to human health and decision makers are starting to factor that it.

A few examples:

In the 1990's, New York City's water quality dropped below EPA standards. The obvious option was to built a new water filtration plant – with a hefty price tag: $6-8 billion for construction and $300 million in yearly operating expenses. Instead, the city decided to invest in the natural processes that help keep water clean. That meant looking upstream to the Catskills watershed where intact ecosystems could help filter the water. The city bought land upstream and improved sewer treatment plants – all at a much lower price: $1-1.5 billion.

In China, the Yangtze River Basin experienced devastating floods in 1998. Many believed the vast deforestation of the surrounding area had been the major cause, since it had eliminated the natural buffer that existed. Since then, the Chinese Government has adopted a system of ecosystem payments – giving subsidies to farmers to plant trees and preserve forested areas.  All in all, their program in budgeted in the billions.

The Natural Capital project has created an online tool known as InVEST that's freely available to the public. It allows users to map ecosystem services in any landscape. The project's co-found Gretchen Daily is hopeful that the tool will make it much easier for natural capital to be part of land use decision-making – especially in countries where development pressures are strong. "It's stunning to see how rapidly things are changing globally. We're losing trillions of dollars of value in natural capital in the form of rain forests and other key natural assets" Daily said. The project is already working with the government of Colombia to use InVEST and to improve their resource permitting process. You can read more about where else they're working here.

Listen to the Putting a Price on Nature radio report online.

Nunavik territory, home to the Kuuvik River.

I was inspired to take this trip by my experiences leading similar, somewhat less extreme trips in northern Ontario and northern Quebec. During this time, I worked summers at a canoe camp located six hours north of Toronto. My job was to put a dozen teenagers on a bus, drive 24 hours to the end of the road, and head out into the Canadian bush for six weeks of travel by canoe and portage. You never know what to expect with these kids when you're several hundred miles from the nearest road, hence the sarcasm implied by my use of the italics above.

At this job I chased down the most remote rivers in Ontario and Quebec that my boss would allow. Each summer I got more into the lifestyle and each summer I wanted to go a little further out. I started to plot my own personal trips into the far-flung reaches of northern Canada that I couldn't reach through this job.

A beloved portage.

Almost ten years later, I was finally offered the opportunity to take one of those trips. A friend from this camp arranged a 3-week long canoe trip and complete sponsorship for four people. The sponsors completed the greenhouse circle from plane flights to carbon offsets. Seasoned canoe trippers, the four of us would run like a well-oiled machine. This was exactly what I had been craving after all those years of teenager drama.

The trip took us into the subarctic tundra of the Nunavik territories of northern Quebec. Here we would do what we love best– travel through nearly uncharted waters, explore the desolate tundra, and document our journey. Now that documentation is complete.

Without making any apologies for self-promotion, let me point you to my main contributions to this site: my first Google Earth creation and my first short film. Of course, both of these would have been total disasters without true expertise. The source for some of this expertise is responsible for the amazing public outreach for the Atlas Experiment. Another source of expertise is producing equally good footage at Al Gore's cable station.

The area we chose is particularly susceptible to global warming. In current models, the regions of permafrost and long winters experience the most significant climate change. The feedback loops here are most extreme: a modest increase in average temperature leads to shorter winters which lead to less snow cover which lead to darker terrain which leads to another modest increase in average temperature which leads to…

The purpose of this website is to convey our own experiences in this amazing area and to outline the threats posed by climate change. As my friend states in the press release:
The site will help North Americans to further appreciate the significance of global climate change, while offering ideas about how people can easily reduce the impacts of climate change. Those who visit will be treated to an interactive public education showpiece which utilizes audio, live animation and photography to share a compelling story.

Kyle S. Dawson is engaged in post-doctorate studies of distant supernovae and development of a proposed space-based telescope at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.