The Urgency of Creating a Software Package for the Monetary Valuation of Ecosystem Assets of Socio-territorial Communities

The introduction of the ecosystem approach into management practice and the implementation of the concept of the interdependence of functional ecosystem stability and human well-being into national environmental policies and legislation in many countries are making the monetary valuation of ecosystem services and assets more relevant. In order to increase the awareness of socio-territorial communities of the value of their ecosystem assets, with a view to creating an economic motivation for environmental protection, the algorithm of the ecosystem asset valuation methodology, as well as three main methodological approaches to its implementation, are consistently disclosed. The article presents the results of the calculation of the monetary valuation of ecosystem assets at the local level (using the example of the monetary valuation of an ecosystem asset of a rural territorial community in the Mykolaiv region, Ukraine). Given the complexity and the need for a consistent multi-stage process for calculating the value of ecosystem services and ecosystem assets, the idea of creating a specific application package with appropriate tools for programming the monetary valuation of ecosystem assets has been put forward. The article shows that there is an urgent need to develop such a package, which will make it possible to standardise initial data, to carry out assessments rapidly, starting at the local level, to increase the reliability of the results obtained and to stimulate the widespread introduction of environmental-economic accounting into national statistical and accounting systems.