Read the following extract concerning the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. How does the issue highlight the importance of valuing natural resources in national income accounts?

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Referring to the BP oil spill, the U.N. urges new resource accounting LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) The Gulf of Mexico oil spill highlights the need for govern- ments to include the value of natural resources, such as fisheries, when calculating the size of their economies, the United Nations environ- ment chief said. AU.N. Environment Programme report on Tues- day urged businesses to take more account of their impact on the natural resources which peo- ple depend on. It said the private sector would act faster if governments more explicitly valued such resources, including biodiversity, a term for the wide array of animal and plant species. "The oil spill goes to the heart of a contradictory set of signals," said the UNEP executive direc- tor. He said that the money spent on cleaning up the spill from BP Plc's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico would be included in gross domestic product, the conventional measure of economic activity, but many costs to nature, including the health of fisheries and the survival of marine creatures, would not. "An oil spill could turn out to be a positive thing for the GDP indicator, while it has actually caused a far greater (nega- tive) impact in terms of the natural wealth and natural capital of the United States."