Can you put a price tag on nature?

Forests regulate the climate. Mangroves protect coastlines. Insects pollinate crops. But the people protecting those ecosystems often aren’t paid for the benefits they provide. What is protecting a forest worth? What about restoring a wetland or helping endangered wildlife recover?

Nature credits are one way to change that by letting companies fund measurable conservation work. The challenge: How do you measure a healthier forest, price a recovering ecosystem, and make sure conservation isn’t used to justify destruction somewhere else?

In the latest episode of The Debrief, Eurasia Group’s María José Valverde explains how nature credits work, why they’re harder to measure than carbon credits, and what it would take to make the system credible.