Natural Capitalism

Paul Hawkin (Natural Capitalism 1997) defines Natural Capital as the resources we use, both non-renewable and renewable, wherein the importance of their value lies in the services they provide distinct from the resources themselves. Roseland sees natural capital as any stock of natural assets yielding a flow of valuable goods and services into the future. The resources that are defined as natural capital can fall into three categories.
-Non-renewable resources: an example of this in Bloomington would be coal, as the cities electricity is primarily dependent on this resource.
-Renewable resources that are only renewable if their natural systems are not overexploited: there are numerous examples of this in Bloomington such as water supplies from Lake Monroe, food supplies from nearby farms, and forestry products from Yellowood State forest and Morgan Monroe State Forest.
-The capacity of natural systems to absorb our waste, pollutants, and emissions without side effects: and example of this in Bloomington would be the city owned street trees in the city which assimilate carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.

The important part of natural capital is the service provided from the resource. For instance, the service provided by street trees in this example would not be trees, but CO2 sequestration, the service provided by a forest would not be the wood, but forest cover and soil stabilization, and the value of farms would not be food, but be topsoil. The most important thing to note about natural capital is that there are essentially no substitutes for these natural services. Natural capital for that reason has become the limiting factor for development. Development is slowed by a lack of services provided by natural capital. Hawkin points out the following limits which would typically occur due to limited economic capital yet are caused by lack of natural capital: limits to increased fish harvests, not due to boats, but due to lack of productive fisheries, limited irrigation, not due to pumps or electricity, but lack of useable aquifers, and the limits to pulp production are not sawmills, but lack of productive forests.

The American Southwest serves as a prime example where development has taken a large step back due to limited natural capital. In an area already dry and sparse, metropolitan cities like Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas have all been affected by a similar problem, lack of water caused by depleted groundwater, depleting reservoirs, and reliance on the lowering Colorado River. The lack of water has caused some suburbs to become ghost towns, and the same problem has stopped some planned communities from being approved, because they can't provide a guaranteed water source.

What are some other examples of regional, or community development stagnation due to limitations caused by lack of capital from your neck of the woods?