Educational Media Reviews Online

Unlike nearly all other environmentally centered documentaries, Banking Nature does not merely dwell on how to stop pollution, but how to invest in protecting nature. It posits the question, “What if economic and financial markets could save the planet?” Stemming from the film’s hard look at the global population boom’s environmental impact, the film makers reinforce the needs for a quality environment and the steady but sustainable usage of natural resources. Remarking that the “goodness of our hearts” strategy and political strategies for protecting nature have failed, the film explores the fascinating notion that the best way to preserve nature is to assign value to its elements as “natural capital.” That is, banks and other entities are now assessing, buying and trading natural securities, such as species and forests. While the notion of trading shares of a species seems baffling at first, the film makers do an outstanding job in detailing the evolution of this notion, citing the rental and sale of bees for pollination on farmland, and a privately backed effort to save a species of fly.

Opponents, however, call this proposal the exploitation of previously unassessed natural resources, as now they may be “packaged and sold” to investors. The film offers a handful of humorous dramatizations showing how one might pay for a sunrise or fresh air. Further, opponents, including economists, politicians, indigenous community members, and environmentalists, raise questions about potential failure to protect species that are not deemed profitable, the scruples of investors in secondary markets, potential perversion of the system, and the overall financial feasibility of such investments.

Although the content is valuable throughout, at times the film makers mildly stray from the work’s central thesis, examining the Kyoto Treaty and the penalizing of countries for exceeding pollution thresholds. On the other hand, this examination of penalization stems from the notion that there is indeed a value on environmental quality. Too, the film creates some very interesting linkages between green investment and market risk, specifically the Global Financial Crisis. Mismanaged ecological crises are reexamined and explanations are given as to how these disasters could actually have been turned into financial opportunities.

This is a fascinating work, investigating an inventive plan to protect nature. Although it gives little in terms of dollars and cents of past instances of success, the film proposes models for natural capital investment and mitigation banking. The portrayal of both sides of this impalpable concept is laudable. Huge assembly of opponents gives this film a distinct objectivity. The work has brilliant foresight into the issues, turning points, dangers, and ethical dilemmas of the proposal. Audiences are recommended to have at least a basic literacy in economic and/or financial terminology.