14 May 2014: The Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) program has released the May 2014 edition of its newsletter, featuring short descriptions and links to the Fourth WAVES Partnership Meeting, a global workshop on natural capital accounting (NCA) for forests, and NCA initiatives in Australia and Mozambique. The newsletter also lists upcoming events, recent publications, and news stories about NCA and WAVES partner projects.
The section on the Fourth WAVES Partnership Meeting, held on 14-15 May 2014 in Washington, DC, US, links to videos of event sessions on using NCA to go beyond the gross domestic product (GDP) in various themes, including: development decision-making, national accounting projects, the role of the private sector, the Aichi biodiversity targets, and development policy and planning in international organizations. Speakers included representatives from various government, private sector, non-profit and international organizations, inter alia, the World Bank, the governments of the Philippines and Guatemala, Conservation International, Dow Chemical Company, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and UN Development Programme (UNDP).
A second WAVES meeting, the Global Workshop on Forest Accounting held from 11-13 May 2014, also appears in the newsletter with links to additional information about the event. The workshop was held to offer technical training to organizations and WAVES partner countries and to help build an international NCA community.
The newsletter also presents NCA initiatives being used to create comprehensive measurements of national wealth in Australia and Mozambique. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has conducted natural capital accounts for water, land, energy, waste and environment assets that estimate country’s natural capital to be near AUD$4.8 trillion. In Mozambique, a World Bank policy note explores the contribution of recent discoveries of coal and gas to the country’s national wealth.
Other items in the newsletter include the launch of a Spanish WAVES website and natural capital and ecosystem services projects by WAVES partners in Chile, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. [WAVES Newsletter] [WAVES Fourth Annual Partnership Meeting]