Kazuki Kagohashi
1 Feb 2026
Bradley, Crystal, Sarah Clement, Michael Vardon, Ben Milligan, and Kazuki Kagohashi. 2026. “Operationalising the Concept of Critical Natural Capital to Understand and Manage Nature Dependency Risk.” Ecosystem Services 77 (101799): 101799.
What parts of nature can’t we live without?
I’m pleased to share a new paper I co-authored with Crystal Bradley, Sarah Clement, Michael Vardon and Ben Milligan, now published in Ecosystem Services.
We all depend on nature for food, clean water, fresh air and protection from floods and storms. But nature is being used up faster than it can recover, and that puts both our wellbeing and our economies at risk. So we asked a simple question: which parts of nature are truly “critical” for people?
The idea of “critical natural capital” has been around for more than 30 years, but it has never been easy to use in practice. One reason, we argue, is that past definitions mixed up two different questions. The first is how important something is to people. The second is how rare or threatened it is. In our paper, we suggest answering these one at a time. Something can be essential without being rare, like a healthy, common forest that keeps our water clean.
To judge importance, we propose a simple ladder of human needs. At the bottom are basic needs such as food, water and air. Next come health and safety. Above that is essential wellbeing, like clothing, education and transport. Nature that supports these needs counts as critical. Each country can decide where to draw the line based on its own values.
Calling something critical doesn’t automatically mean locking it away. Instead, it tells governments to look carefully at their options. They might use it more wisely, give priority to essential uses, restore it, or invest in alternatives.
I hope this helps governments, not just businesses, take our dependence on nature more seriously.
The paper is open access and free to read here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2025.101799