Post date: Jun 18, 2012 1:6:39 PM
Thomson Reuters Foundation/World Bank video explains "natural capital accounting" for Rio+20 summit
THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION AND THE WORLD BANK - Thomson Reuters Foundation and the World Bank have jointly produced a video explaining the concept of "natural capital accounting" in the run-up to the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development. The seven-minute video news release (VNR) was created as part of a World Bank campaign for countries to carry through on promises to include the full value of natural resources in their national income accounts.
"Natural capital accounting would add to GDP an understanding of the wealth that is stored in our natural resources - the wealth upon which we depend for a lot of that income: minerals before they're mined, forests before they're felled, water whilst it is in the rivers and clean," says Rachel Kyte, the World Bank's vice president of sustainable development and one of the experts interviewed.
Produced by the Foundation's award-winning multimedia team with funding from the World Bank, the video explores how natural capital accounting could help countries to measure who benefits and who bears the cost of changes to ecosystems. It includes interviews with Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute; Alvaro Umana, Costa Rica's former environment minister; Carolina Urrutia of Colombia's National Planning Department; Tom Griffiths of the Forest People Programme; and Laisa Santos Sampaio, a Brazilian rainforest activist.
Any opinions expressed in the VNR are those of the World Bank or the speakers interviewed and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.