There’s nothing new about the idea of a census. The Ancient Romans used them to asses potential military strength, and the earliest leaders of the United States thought a comprehensive picture of the population so valuable to the young nation that the wrote it into the Constitution.

Now, however, the British Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn, is looking to extend the concept to fully asses the natural resources of the United Kingdom.  The project aims to asses precise levels of biodiversity, species populations, and natural resources in the island nation, as well as to provide expanded availability of green spaces to the country’s urban residents.

While advocates of smaller government might decry this as yet another pork barrel project, establishing current levels would give the UK markets tremendous insight into both their resource supplies and their impacts on the environment. This in turn could allow them to set prices to be more accurately, without the need for excessive or inefficient government regulation.