When the value of their free 'service' is calculated one realises they earn South Africa millions of rands a year. The services of ecological systems and natural capital stocks are critical to the functioning of earth's life-support systems. Without life support, economies would not exist. Natural value, Nature stated, is part of the total economic value of the planet. It is high time a resource economies study was carried out in South Africa to accurately quantify the value of wetlands.
Wetlands are critical to the national economy.
In terms of costs and savings, Mr Lindley cited the Water Research Commission which has found at least 650 South Africans, mostly children, die of diarrhoea every day. He is also of the opinion it is more cost-effective to manage a wetland properly in the first place than to try and clean it up afterwards. In similar vein South African Environment into the 21st Century reports the government's subsidy bill in 1988 after a series of droughts and floods was R14 000-million. This would have been drastically reduced had wetlands been functioning at peak capacity. Wetlands are threatened by mining and industrial pollution, urbanisation, the building of dams, timber production, wetlands drainage and cropping, overgrazing, over-harvesting of plants and poorly managed burning.