Study Puts Values on New Jersey's Natural Assets

(Source: Pam Belluck, New York Times)

The Pine Barrens, it turns out, also have an environmental value of about $1,476 an acre a year, based on their ability to provide the earth with water, animal habitat and pollination, according to a report being released today.

The report, by economists commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, tries to put a dollar value on the state’s natural resources, from the Jersey Shore to the Kittatinny Mountains, to places like, well, Weehawken.

Beaches like Sandy Hook and Sea Girt, with their environmentally essential sand dunes, had the highest value per acre per year, about $42,000.

New Jersey’s cities, which occupy more acreage than almost any other topography in the state, had no environmental value, except for parks, playgrounds and other occasional green spaces. Neither did the rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The report grew out of an environmental theory that is controversial in some quarters, but seems to be gaining some mainstream adherents. In recent years, number crunchers have been putting dollar values on peat bogs and coral reefs around the world.

Original Article (NY Times)