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Ecomarkets for conservation and sustainable development in the coastal zone
Abstract
Because conventional markets value only certain goods or services in the ocean (e.g. fish), other services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems that are not priced, paid for, or stewarded tend to become degraded. In fact, the very capacity of an ecosystem to produce a valued good or service is often reduced because conventional markets value only certain goods and services, rather than the productive capacity. Coastal socio-ecosystems are particularly susceptible to these market failures due to the lack of clear property rights, strong dependence on resource extraction, and other factors. Conservation strategies aimed at protecting unvalued coastal ecosystem services through regulation or spatial management (e.g. Marine Protected Areas) can be effective but often result in lost revenue and adverse social impacts, which, in turn, create conflict and opposition. Here, we describe 'ecomarkets' - markets and financial tools - that could, under the right conditions, generate value for broad portfolios of coastal ecosystem services while maintaining ecosystem structure and function by addressing the unique problems of the coastal zone, including the lack of clear management and exclusion rights. Just as coastal tenure and catch-share systems generate meaningful conservation and economic outcomes, it is possible to imagine other market mechanisms that do the same with respect to a variety of other coastal ecosystem goods and services. Rather than solely relying on extracting goods, these approaches could allow communities to diversify ecosystem uses and focus on long-term stewardship and conservation, while meeting development, food security, and human welfare goals. The creation of ecomarkets will be difficult in many cases, because rights and responsibilities must be devolved, new social contracts will be required, accountability systems must be created and enforced, and long-term patterns of behaviour must change. We argue that efforts to overcome these obstacles are justified, because these deep changes will strongly complement policies and tools such as Marine Protected Areas, coastal spatial management, and regulation, thereby helping to bring coastal conservation to scale.
... These grants can be sporadic in nature and allocated on timescales too short to fully achieve optimal conservation outcomes, or for the societal benefits of the conservation activities to be felt (Bos et al. 2015). To better conserve marine environments, greater security of funding sources and mechanisms is required (Bos et al. 2015;Fujita et al. 2013;Johansen and Vestvik 2020;Tirumala and Tiwari 2020). ...
... Many ecosystem services remain unvalued or undervalued (e.g. nutrient cycling, biodiversity supporting fisheries productivity), and rarely do users pay for all the services they financially benefit from (Fujita et al. 2013; also see Haas et al. 2021). ...
... Restructuring investment markets and reducing risks associated with privatesector investment in marine sustainability are critical for this (e.g. Fujita et al. 2013;Tirumala and Tiwari 2020). One mechanism developed recently is 'blue bonds', which enable developing countries to attract and leverage philanthropic investment to refinance national debt and fund marine conservation and sustainability projects (The World Bank Group 2020; TNC 2020). ...
Marine ecosystems and their associated biodiversity sustain life on Earth and hold intrinsic value. Critical marine ecosystem services include maintenance of global oxygen and carbon cycles, production of food and energy, and sustenance of human wellbeing. However marine ecosystems are swiftly being degraded due to the unsustainable use of marine environments and a rapidly changing climate. The fundamental challenge for the future is therefore to safeguard marine ecosystem biodiversity, function, and adaptive capacity whilst continuing to provide vital resources for the global population. Here, we use foresighting/hindcasting to consider two plausible futures towards 2030: a business-as-usual trajectory (i.e. continuation of current trends), and a more sustainable but technically achievable future in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We identify key drivers that differentiate these alternative futures and use these to develop an action pathway towards the desirable, more sustainable future. Key to achieving the more sustainable future will be establishing integrative (i.e. across jurisdictions and sectors), adaptive management that supports equitable and sustainable stewardship of marine environments. Conserving marine ecosystems will require recalibrating our social, financial, and industrial relationships with the marine environment. While a sustainable future requires long-term planning and commitment beyond 2030, immediate action is needed to avoid tipping points and avert trajectories of ecosystem decline. By acting now to optimise management and protection of marine ecosystems, building upon existing technologies, and conserving the remaining biodiversity, we can create the best opportunity for a sustainable future in 2030 and beyond.
... Nonetheless, the full recovery of the environmental costs of the project remains difficult to be achieved. New solutions to limit environmental damage might come from the adoption of market tools based on incentivising payments for ecosystem services (PES) (Fujita et al., 2012). ...
... Instead of charging the direct and indirect beach actors for the damage caused by the nourishment, the promotion of the ecosystem services could be based on voluntary payments (or institutionalised by the public administration), made by those who gain benefits from the protection of the coastline and the seagrass meadows. Under the latter mechanism, local ecosystem service gainers (anglers, coastal dwellers, beach users, etc.) should pay public or private bodies entitled to guarantee the sustainable use of the beach and the protection of the seagrass (Lau, 2013;Fujita et al., 2012). This protection could be obtained by a better management of marine dredging and beach filling operations, increasing the knowledge of water current dynamics, reducing suspended sediments and nutrients from the basin, and the direct impact on seagrass meadows from illegal trawling. ...
... Too few examples exist today (Forest Trends, 2010) and many complexities make this tool difficult to be employed for the protection of marine ecosystem services. In fact, the implementation of PES depends on several factors not always determined at marine scale: 1) the opportunity cost of conservation; 2) the incorrect assignment of property rights among several coastal actors (private and public) that do not favour the negotiation between parties (providers of services and beneficiaries) (Fujita et al., 2012); 3) and the feasibility to verify the good status of the marine habitats and the delivery of ecological benefits (WWF, 2012). ...
... Using the second-tier of market-based tools, coral reef restoration provides a platform for expanding existing markets, with products that have not been considered thus far, in addition to broadening some of the markets already involved. By providing new/expanded markets, the secondtier deviates from traditional economic considerations, predominantly preferring reef stakeholders (e.g., Sundar, 2013;Blignaut et al., 2014), through the description of novel markets/financial instruments associated with reef restoration (Fujita et al., 2013). Thus, using the 'gardening approach', the second-tier incentives adopt anthropocentric perspectives that focus on several instrumental values (Fig. 2), including: ...
... Nursery farmed and transplanted colonies of Stylophora pistillata are illustrated as a test case. Based on the literature (Shafir and Rinkevich, 2010;Shaish et al., 2010a,b;Horoszowski-Friedman et al., 2011;Fujita et al., 2013;Leal et al., 2013;Rinkevich, 2014), unpublished results and the proposed new market-based instruments. ...
... It has also been asserted that there are ecosystem marketplaces in/near almost all reef sites, meaning market based tools can be successfully employed almost anywhere (sensu Moilanen et al., 2009). Whereas traditionally used biodiversity offsets do not always compensate for habitat destruction (e.g., Maron et al., 2010;Fujita et al., 2013), employing the new tradable rights in active reef restoration may add benefits as yet undiscovered, with real compensation for losses and/or a long-term financial support of active reef restoration; thus further reducing the uncertainty associated with restoration operations (Hilderbrand et al., 2005;Shaish et al., 2010b). ...
... The latter applies in situations where management involves diverse fisheries or multiple stakeholders. COBI has promoted the pairing of sustainable fishing efforts with market incentives (Fujita et al. 2013). Fifteen fishing cooperatives, six in the Mesoamerican Reef (that together form a collective 'Integradora de Pescadores de Quintana Roo') and nine in the Pacific (grouped in the Regional Baja California Cooperatives Federation, 'FEDECOOP') decided to go through the MSC certification process. ...
... Contributions COBI has focused on two main strategies: the use of market incentives such as eco-labeling and consumer guides (Fujita et al. 2013) and connecting small-scale fishers with new markets. These strategies are accompanied with a capacity development program for fishers to know which options they have for ecolabels and to give them creative communication channels to connect to better markets. ...
Small-scale fisheries contribute about half of global catches whilst employing approximately 90% of the people directly dependent on capture fisheries. Taking into account the importance of this sector in the global economy, and its contribution to nutrition and livelihoods, in 2015 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations published the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). This chapter describes the contributions, challenges, and lessons learned from implementing the SSF Guidelines, from the perspective of a marine conservation civil society organization (CSO) that works on providing effective solutions for small-scale fisheries management in Mexico in direct collaboration with stakeholders. Mexico is a developing country, with a small-scale fishing force of over 74,000 registered boats, in which diverse fisheries face many challenges to secure livelihoods whilst simultaneously ensuring sustainability and adapting to changing environmental conditions. The SSF Guidelines represents a landmark document that highlights the importance of the small-scale fisheries sector and provides significant guidance to states and stakeholders for ensuring the long-term sustainability of small-scale fisheries. Finally, the chapter provides insights into and recommendations on how CSOs and other interested stakeholders can foster the implementation of the Guidelines.
... PArtIcIPAtIonCountless communities throughout the Neotropics depend on mangroves as their primary food and fuelwood source and for protection from storms and coastal erosion. Yet, traditional conservation strategies, aimed at protecting mangroves through, for example, strict protection or regulation, often result in lost revenue or adverse social effects, particularly when local communities are excluded from decision-making and/or removed from the ecosystem(Fujita et al., 2013). And, while community participation is no panacea in and of itself for environmental degradation, effective resource management and conservation increasingly depend on the inclusion and involvement of local communities in related policymaking, management and monitoring (see for exampleGibson et al., 2000; Van Levieren et al., 2012).In Ecuador, the government is experimenting with several new forms of collaborative natural resource governance, including Mangrove Ecosystem Concessions, which are 10-year contracts between the Ministry of Environment and native communities or other organized ...
... In the extractive reserves, control and ownership of natural resources is conferred to local communities who regulate access to and harvest of timber and fishing resources. SaintPaul (2006) found that many of these extractive reserves were more effective at protecting the area and resources of mangrove and other forests than reserves managed by the Federal Government of Brazil.FInAncIAl InstrumentsAlthough mangroves are increasingly incorporated into reserve systems and addressed through legal restrictions and other regulations, mangrove loss and degradation persist, due in part to their 'incomplete' valuation in the modern marketplace(Fujita et al., 2013). Financial instruments, such as payments for environmental services, con-servation easements and mitigation banking, along with expanded markets that value a broader suite of goods and services could greatly enhance the conservation of mangroves, though successful examples of such programs are scarce. ...
This essay addresses the conservation issues facing mangroves in the Anthropocene, defined as the era of human domination over the world. We review the laws, policies, international agreements, and local actions that address the conservation of mangrove forests in the Neotropics and relate them to the Anthropocene. Collaboration between governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that depend on mangroves for their livelihood will be critical in the Anthropocene. The essay also reviews recent developments in mangrove ecology and ecophysiology that enlighten how mangroves might respond to changes in temperature and rainfall, sea level rise, and other anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Mangroves in the Anthropocene will also face changes in their species composition given the current movement of mangroves species across continental barriers as a result of human activity. These trends will lead to novel mangrove forests and in some cases expand the range of mangroves worldwide. The solution to mangrove persistence in the Anthropocene is not to isolate mangroves from people, but to regulate interactions between mangroves and humans through effective management. We will also have to expand the scope of the ecological analysis of mangrove ecosystems to include the social forces converging on the mangroves through an analytical approach that has been termed Social Ecology.
... Beyond grants, there are additional finance mechanisms that can generate revenue for social and environmental purposes (Salamon, 2014). Notably, market-based instruments create economic incentives (rewards or punishments) for marine conservation outcomes (Fujita et al., 2013). Many market-based instruments were developed by environmental economists to reduce the negative environmental impacts associated with the production of goods and services (hereafter 'environmental damages') and the uncompensated costs associated with those environmental damages (the damages and costs together are hereafter 'environmental externalities; ' Thampapillai and Sinden, 2013). ...
... Numerous revenue-raising market-based instruments have been proposed, are in development, or are being applied for marine conservation. Marine payments for ecosystem services, is one of the most 'promising' market-based instruments for generating sustained revenue to achieve marine outcomes (Fujita et al., 2013). Investors for marine payments for ecosystem services are either the beneficiaries of the ecosystem services, and/or the people damaging the ecosystem services (Wunder, 2007;Lau, 2013). ...
... PArtIcIPAtIonCountless communities throughout the Neotropics depend on mangroves as their primary food and fuelwood source and for protection from storms and coastal erosion. Yet, traditional conservation strategies, aimed at protecting mangroves through, for example, strict protection or regulation, often result in lost revenue or adverse social effects, particularly when local communities are excluded from decision-making and/or removed from the ecosystem(Fujita et al., 2013). And, while community participation is no panacea in and of itself for environmental degradation, effective resource management and conservation increasingly depend on the inclusion and involvement of local communities in related policymaking, management and monitoring (see for exampleGibson et al., 2000; Van Levieren et al., 2012).In Ecuador, the government is experimenting with several new forms of collaborative natural resource governance, including Mangrove Ecosystem Concessions, which are 10-year contracts between the Ministry of Environment and native communities or other organized ...
... In the extractive reserves, control and ownership of natural resources is conferred to local communities who regulate access to and harvest of timber and fishing resources. SaintPaul (2006) found that many of these extractive reserves were more effective at protecting the area and resources of mangrove and other forests than reserves managed by the Federal Government of Brazil.FInAncIAl InstrumentsAlthough mangroves are increasingly incorporated into reserve systems and addressed through legal restrictions and other regulations, mangrove loss and degradation persist, due in part to their 'incomplete' valuation in the modern marketplace(Fujita et al., 2013). Financial instruments, such as payments for environmental services, con-servation easements and mitigation banking, along with expanded markets that value a broader suite of goods and services could greatly enhance the conservation of mangroves, though successful examples of such programs are scarce. ...
This essay addresses the conservation issues facing mangroves in the Anthropocene, defined as the era of human domination over the world. We review the laws, policies, international agreements, and local actions that address the conservation of mangrove forests in the Neotropics and relate them to the Anthropocene. Collaboration between governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that depend on mangroves for their livelihood will be critical in the Anthropocene. The essay also reviews recent developments in mangrove ecology and ecophysiology that enlighten how mangroves might respond to changes in temperature and rainfall, sea level rise, and other anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Mangroves in the Anthropocene will also face changes in their species composition given the current movement of mangroves species across continental barriers as a result of human activity. These trends will lead to novel mangrove forests and in some cases expand the range of mangroves worldwide. The solution to mangrove persistence in the Anthropocene is not to isolate mangroves from people, but to regulate interactions between mangroves and humans through effective management. We will also have to expand the scope of the ecological analysis of mangrove ecosystems to include the social forces converging on the mangroves through an analytical approach that has been termed Social Ecology.
... Where institutions are not sufficiently comprehensive and organized, lack jurisdiction over resources and ecosystems, or possess jurisdiction that is too localized or limited to specific resources, actions first must be directed toward building such capacity and tenure (eg Basurto 2005Basurto , 2008. Access privileges that extend to entire ecosystems are required to create stewardship incentives that extend to all the fisheries and aquaculture activities in a given area (Fujita et al. 2013). In some cases, it might be possible to form ad-hoc institutions (eg cooperatives or coalitions among governmental agencies, resource users, and other interested parties). ...
... Such financial strategies are necessary to encourage the broader participation of small-scale and developing-world seafood producers who could otherwise not afford the cost of participation. Another possible financing mechanism is to establish direct payments or performance payments to offset the costs incurred by local communities to conserve and restore their environment (Ferraro and Kiss 2002;Fujita et al. 2013). Contracts established with governments or NGOs compensate users of marine resources for the costs of their conservation efforts. ...
Environmental certification and consumer awareness programs are designed to create market incentives for implementing fisheries and aquaculture practices that are more sustainable. Typically focused on particular species and activities, such programs have so far triggered few changes to improve seafood sustainability. Here, we present a conceptual, system-wide fisheries and aquaculture certification program designed to recognize and promote change toward more sustainable and resilient seafood production systems. In contrast to previous efforts, this program concentrates on both ecosystems and various human stakeholders, relies on an adaptive management approach (termed "continual improvement") to enhance outcomes, and considers socioeconomic factors. The goal of this program is to support the restoration and maintenance of healthy ecosystem states and thriving human communities as well as the improvement of whole social-ecological systems.
... Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), a tool for managing ecosystems by providing positive incentives for behavioural changes has been touted as "the next best thing" for filling the conservation financing gap (Fujita et al., 2013;Waylen and Julia Martin-Ortega, 2018). The suitability of this scheme for marine application and in particular coastal protection, which is often rated among the most important services provided by coral reefs, is however unclear (Moberg and Folke, 1999;Mehvar et al., 2018). ...
La protection côtière est un service écosystémique (SE) des récifs coralliens extrêmement important, en particulier avec les impacts négatifs imminents et croissants du changement climatique mondial (GCC). Le SE de protection côtière n'a cependant pas retenu la même attention que celle portée à des SE plus « évidents » peut-être parce que les avantages du SE ne sont visibles que sur terre (pas en mer) et sont couplés à des défis dans son évaluation tels que la détermination précise du rôle du corail vivant dans la fourniture du service. Malgré ces défis, la contribution des récifs à la prestation des SE a été scientifiquement prouvée. Les récifs coralliens sont en déclin à l'échelle mondiale à cause des impacts locaux et mondiaux, exacerbés par un financement inadéquat et non durable de leur protection et gestion. Il est impératif que nous déterminions les méthodes les plus adaptées pour améliorer la santé des récifs, dans un monde où la situation est à la fois désastreuse et sensible au temps ; avec un délai estimé à moins de 50 ans pour agir. Un élément essentiel de toute solution est de savoir comment payer pour ces améliorations, à un moment où les méthodes de financement traditionnelles semblent insuffisantes et où un financement inadéquat est identifié comme un obstacle majeur au succès de la conservation. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier des solutions à la fois écologiques et financières pour améliorer la santé des récifs coralliens et son SE de protection des côtes. Nous concentrons l'analyse sur la viabilité et le financement de récifs artificiels “gris-verts” avec des solutions de restauration des récifs coralliens visant à protéger les plages de l'érosion. Le chapitre 2. Du paper pose le « décor » des chapitres suivants. Les interventions écologiques et financières interviennent dans le cadre d'une Aire Marine Protégée (AMP). Le document a analysé les données de 2 nations insulaires et via des analyses coûts-avantages a fourni des preuves de l'attractivité de l'investissement dans les AMP pour protéger les SE. Le chapitre prochaine passe en revue ce que l'on sait de la protection côtière des récifs coralliens et détermine sa faisabilité pour un système de paiement pour les services écosystémiques (PSE). Au cours du processus, le rôle du corail vivant a été analysé et les actions de gestion identifiées qui pourraient améliorer la santé des récifs pour la prestation de services ont été identifiées. Ce document identifie la restauration des coraux comme une intervention clé pour la protection côtière et fournit la justification du chapitre 5. Le chapitre 5 explore plus en détail les moyens non publics de financement de la conservation marine via des investissements à impact et des financements mixtes. Ayant identifié qu'il est logique d'investir dans les AMP au chapitre 1, nous identifions le type de financement et proposons un mécanisme de financement pour l'investissement. Les sorties sont utilisées dans le chapitre 5Le chapitre 6 utilise les résultats des chapitres 4 et 5 et développe des solutions écologiques et financières pour la protection côtière. Dans cet article, nous démontrons l'impact positif de la restauration des récifs, proposons des options pour le faire et montrons l'additionnalité obtenue en utilisant de telles solutions basées sur la nature par rapport aux infrastructures grises traditionnelles pour atténuer l'érosion côtière. Le chapitre 7 synthétise les résultats des chapitres précédents et conclut que si la restauration n'est pas une solution « parfaite », c'est peut-être notre meilleure chance d'améliorer la santé des récifs pour la protection côtière. Le fardeau du financement de telles solutions - dont le coût varie considérablement - ne devrait pas incomber uniquement aux gouvernements et devrait être partagé avec le secteur privé, en particulier ceux qui bénéficient directement de la protection côtière.
... recharge of aquifers). Moreover, within the specific object "Land-use" ("Economic development"), the actions provided are: (a) ban on urban development in sensitive zones; (b) coastal zone water management plan and implementation (Clark 1997;Fujita et al. 2013;Dronkers 2022). ...
Zone Umide della Capitanata, located in the northeastern part of the Apulia Region, is one of the most extensive coastal wetlands of the Italian peninsula and one of the largest components of the Mediterranean wetland system. Despite its high ecological importance, this site has been undergoing a variety of pressures intensified in recent decades. This study analyzes and evaluates the changes occurred in this area between 2010 and 2020. Land cover and habitat maps were performed by photointerpretation and on-site surveys, and classified according to the FAO-LCCS and EUNIS taxonomies, respectively. To focus on local dynamics, four subset areas were analyzed separately. A set of landscape metrics was computed to analyze the landscape structure. The anthropogenic pressures affecting the study area were described through the Driving Forces-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) conceptual framework. Numerous changes were identified, deriving from both finest thematic redefinition and anthropogenic pressures. Both class conversions and class modifications were identified and quantified by means of transition matrices. Most of the observed conversions were borne by classes belonging to saltmarshes and to coastal dune systems. In particular, landscape configuration of coastal dune classes was well highlighted by a set of specific landscape metrics. Agriculture practices and changes in water flow pattern turned out to be the main driving forces exerting pressures on these natural systems. Significant differences were found between the four subsets under analysis, thus indicating that different management strategies lead to different levels of conservation.
... Therefore, the prominent socio-economic and ecological value of coastal zones plays an essential role in global economic development and ecological sustainability [7]. In recent years, coastal zones have experienced accelerating economic and urban construction, which has had significant impacts [8,9]. There is an increasingly prominent contradiction between the demands of industrialization/urbanization and the limited resources (land/coastline/environmental capacity) available [10][11][12][13]. ...
Increased reclamation activity has adversely affected the conservation of coastal environments. The interactions between reclamation activities and their interference with the natural and functional properties of coastal zones increase the difficulty of marine spatial planning and eco-environmental management. In this study, an evaluation method for describing the intensity of the reclamation activity (RAI) based on regional planning theory and human–marine coordination theory was proposed, and a quantitative evaluation index system was constructed. The method was applied to Shandong Province in China via geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis. The results reveal that there was an obvious increase in the RAI from 1974 to 2021, with the total reclamation scale index and coordination of reclamation activities index being the most prominent. In addition, it was found that 2007–2017 was the peak period of infilling reclamation in Shandong Province. The natural coastlines are mainly occupied by enclosed mariculture and saltern, which should be strictly managed. The proposed index system can effectively identify the spatiotemporal characteristics of the reclamation intensity and can be used to efficiently determine management priorities. It provides a theoretical basis for regional reclamation management and can be conveniently adopted by management departments for coastal environmental protection.
... Favoured strategies often reflect disciplinary paradigms, for example some economists and governments (e.g. the UK) favour natural capital and ecosystem services approaches which attempt to incorporate marine and wider environments into the capitalist economy through valuation of the contribution nature makes to the market, together with associated policy changes (e.g. DEFRA, 2018;Fujita et al., 2013;García-Llorente et al., 2016;Karrasch et al., 2014;Rees et al., 2013). ...
The negative anthropogenic impacts upon the world ocean are accelerating. Marine citizenship has been proposed as a policy channel to work at an individual level of responsibility to improve marine environmental health and contribute to the achievement of a sustainable future. This interdisciplinary research reflects the principles of post-normal science, through its epistemologically pragmatic and pluralist approach to broadening our understanding of marine citizenship.
Drawing on environmental psychology, human geography, environmental law, green political theory, and sociology, this research considers marine citizenship according to four key research questions: i) What is marine citizenship and who participates in it? ii) How are institutional policy frameworks of marine citizenship understood, interpreted and experienced by participants? iii) How do motivational and value-based factors influence marine citizenship choices? And iv) How do place-related factors influence the practice of marine citizenship? Mixed methods were used to bring together a range of data and maximise their thesis contribution. The research design consisted of an online survey of active marine citizens reached via three case studies: two community marine groups and one national citizen science project. This was followed by ethnographic observation of marine citizenship in practice and open-ended interview of purposively selected participants, to maximise insight into diversity of marine citizens and gain in-depth qualitative data.
The results provide a number of novel insights into the conception and motivation of marine citizenship. In my research, prevailing interpretations of marine citizenship as a set of pro-environmental behaviours are extended by situating the concept within citizenship theory. Here I give additional focus to the understanding of marine citizenship as the right to construct and transform society’s relationship with the ocean, and how public participation in marine decision-making is perceived as being under-served by legislation and procedure. My data show that marine citizenship is influenced by a complex of interacting variables and that there is no one kind of person who becomes a marine citizen. Yet environmental identity, stimulation and conformity basic human values, climate change concern, place attachment and, in particular, place dependency are important factors for ‘thicker’ marine citizenship. The research uncovered a human affinity with the ocean through unique marine place attachment, which I call thalassophilia.
These findings challenge normative approaches to pro-environmental behaviour, which frequently focus on environmental education, information, and awareness raising. Creating opportunities for marine experiences promotes attachment to the ocean and in turn ‘thicker’ marine citizenship. The results collectively point to a marine identity, formed through ocean connectedness and enabled by favourable socio-economic and policy conditions. When associated with good ocean health, marine identity can underpin and be reinforced by marine citizenship. Marine citizenship coincides with broader environmental and civic citizenship; therefore marine experience opportunities may contribute to wider acceptance of policy and public participation in the paradigmatic change now facing humans, as we attempt to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the coming years.
... Martinez-Harms et al. (2015) pointed out that the ES concept is a critical issue in environmental decision making. Fujita et al. (2013) mentioned that ES degradation is a market failure that likely stems from the inflexibility of established markets to incorporate the full spectrum of ecosystem goods and services in coastal areas. Payment for ecosystems/environmental services (PES) is one type of market-based instrument for using ESs to address market failure issues and external costs , Froger et al. 2015. ...
Taiwan’s aquaculture farms are mostly established along intertidal zones and coastal land areas, and their presence may affect coastal ecosystems and their ecosystem services (ESs). Payments for ecosystem services (PES) represent a potential method of enhancing the provision of ESs for coastal aquaculture; thus, their feasibility should be discussed. In this study, we conducted focus group interviews to identify issues and collect information about coastal aquaculture in southwestern Taiwan, and we developed a PES framework for coastal aquaculture based on our findings. The identification of ESs and the inclusion of a market design (e.g. pricing, incentive, and conditionality) in a PES scheme might be key factors for successfully transforming aquaculture into an ES provider. PES schemes could be applied to coastal oyster farming in Taiwan, and coastal oyster farmers who adopt eco-friendly aquaculture should receive subsidies to secure revenues. The findings presented here will provide important reference information for policy makers and managers to design a feasible PES scheme for coastal resource management.
... They have become some of the most concentrated areas in the world owing to the rich natural resources and superior geographic location [9]. In recent years, the economic development of coastal areas resulted in structural damage and reduced the functions of coastal ecosystems [10]. In addition, the degradation of coastal ecosystems has led to the endangerment and extinction of some species in coastal zones [11]. ...
... The generation and retention of benefits from marine ecotourism help to align the livelihood seeking incentives of local community members with the stewardship of the marine resources in Moalboal (cf. Fujita et al., 2013;Lubchenco et al., 2016). In natural resource reliant communities where ecotourism is being considered to diversify the local economy, this is a necessary condition to provide viable AIGAs to conventional extractive uses such as fishing (e.g., Wunder, 2000;Muallil et al., 2011). ...
Widespread overharvest has led to marine ecosystem degradation and declining fishery catches in many tropical communities. To allow stocks to recover and provide increased flows of food and income, reductions in fishing effort are necessary. The development of Alternative Income Generating Activities can help to reduce the economic reliance of coastal communities on fishing, potentially reducing pressure on fish stocks. Here we assess the local conditions which have enabled the creation of Alternative Income Generating Activities to fishing based on marine ecotourism in Moalboal, Philippines. Importantly, while marine ecotourism typically centers around charismatic megafauna, a combination of nearshore fringing reefs, the establishment of nearshore marine protected areas and the occurrence of a consistently large herring aggregation provide a large tourism draw to this community. Using a combination of regional and local economic statistics and stakeholder surveys, we implement an economic valuation of Moalboal marine ecotourism for 2018 and compare this valuation to an independent estimate of the extractive value of the herring aggregation. The Moalboal case indicates that a combination of strong community engagement in the governance of the ecotourism resource, a network of locally managed marine protected areas and the retention and distribution of economic benefits within the local community have led to a significant marine ecotourism sector. We contextualize these conditions into a set of potential enabling conditions for marine ecotourism as an Alternative Income Generating Activity to fishing to contribute insights to diversifying livelihood opportunities beyond extractive fishing for coastal communities in the tropics.
... Figure 14 shows how our study area can be representative of a much more extensive situation. Moreover, the interaction between urban areas and the agricultural landscape and their development policies is a problem that characterizes the socio-ecological landscape in the Mediterranean area [67][68][69]. Moreover, the ecosystem services approach used in the study areas can be applied to all peri-urban areas characterized by the dominant presence of olive trees. ...
The Apulian Region (Italy) is a socio-ecological system shaped by the millennial co-evolution between human actions and ecological processes. It is characterized by monumental olive groves protected from Regional Law 14/2007 for the cultural value of the landscape, currently threatened by the spread of a devastating phytopathogen, the bacteria Xylella fastidiosa. The aim of this paper is to apply landscape resilience analysis focusing on ecosystem services to understand the potential effects and trade-offs of regeneration policies in a peri-urban area characterized by monumental olive groves land cover. The study involved land-cover and land-use analysis, supported by a survey on the inhabitants and an ecosystem services analysis. The results showed a mismatch between the agroecosystem and the social and economic use linked to leisure or hospitality. The study area was defined as a peri-urban landscape characterized by tourist use. From the interviews of the users, the cultural heritage of olive groves seems linked to the presence of olive trees like a status quo of the landscape and olive oil productions. The culture aspect could thus be preserved by changing the type of olive trees. In addition, the analysis showed that the microclimate could be preserved and enhanced in terms of air temperature and thermal comfort, by replacing the olive trees with varieties resistant to Xylella, such as cv. Leccino. Therefore, regeneration policies that promote replacing dead olive groves with new olive trees could be efficient to stimulate social components of the landscape and improve the resilience of ecosystem services in peri-urban areas in the interest of the cultural heritage of the users and benefits that they provide. An ecosystem services analysis at a local scale could be a strategy for an integrated regenerate approach between land-use and land-cover with social, ecological, and economic evolutions vision orientated to a sustainable and desirable future.
... Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), a tool for managing ecosystems by providing positive incentives for behavioural changes (Bladon et al., 2016) has been touted as "the next best thing" for filling the conservation financing gap (Fujita et al., 2013;Waylen and Julia Martin-Ortega, 2018). The suitability of this scheme for marine application and in particular coastal protection, which is often rated among the most important services provided by coral reefs, is however unclear (Moberg and Folke, 1999;Burke et al., 2008;Mehvar et al., 2018). ...
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is an emerging tool intended to solve a range of ecosystem management inefficiencies, by linking conservation action to payment. Such schemes have not been tested to our knowledge, for coral reef derived coastal protection, which is a key Ecosystem Service (ES) for many nations bordered by tropical coral reefs. Coral health is deteriorating globally, as are their ES and inadequate finance is identified as a cross cutting factor stymieing management action. In this paper, we assessed the feasibility of PES for coastal protection, with a focus on the scientific requirements. Key PES elements related solely to ecological processes were isolated, the role of coral reefs in protecting beaches reviewed and priority management options for improving reef health synthesized. Outputs indicate that there is adequate scientific knowledge to satisfy a PES. While there is limited ability to prove and quantify causality between management actions and ES delivery, PES criteria can be satisfied with the substitution of a management proxy, rather than payments being conditional on ES measurements. Management, both passive and active, would focus on aintaining reefs that already have a protective function and front stable beaches, above a functioning threshold.
... First they can be employed to raise awareness about the weight of ecosystem services and damages humans provoke to them. Lack of awareness and of accurate information result in actions that, although unintentionally, harm coastal ecosystems; moreover the absence of strong signals about the value of ecosystem services (and connected benefits) encourages short-term wild exploitation (Van Beukering and Cesar, 2004;Fujita et al., 2013). ...
Making nature's value visible to humans is a key issue for the XXI century and it is crucial to identify and measure natural capital to incorporate benefits or costs of changes in ecosystem services into policy. Emergy analysis, a method able to analyze the overall functioning of a system, was applied to reckon the value of main ecosystem services provided by Posidonia oceanica, a fragile and precious Mediterra-nean seagrass ecosystem. Estimates, based on calculation of resources employed by nature, resulted in a value of 172 € m À2 a À1. Sediment retained by meadow is most relevant input, composing almost the whole P. oceanica value. Remarks about economic losses arising from meadow regression have been made through a time-comparison of meadow maps. Suggested procedure represents an operative tool to provide a synthetic monetary measure of ecosystem services to be employed when comparing natural capital to human and financial capitals in a substitutability perspective.
... Residents of protected mangrove forests could experience conflict with local communities and other resource users, particularly if they are excluded from the area without compensation for lost livelihoods (Mora and Sale 2011). The conventional strategies aimed at protecting mangroves through strict protections or regulatory measures (e.g., protected species, no-take areas, species-by-species-based management) often result in lost revenue or adverse social effects, especially when local communities are excluded from decision-making (Fujita et al. 2013) and when there are pressures for conversion from another intensive land-use type (FAO 2007). Moreover, unclear property rights or overlapping authority over mangrove systems by multiple agencies, communities, or individuals can lead to conflicts and exacerbate mangrove degradation and conversion (Gibson et al. 2000;Van Lavieren et al. 2012). ...
Mangroves provide multiple valuable environmental services, including their high potential for the sequestration of blue carbon. However, mangrove conservation is socially demanding. Through a spatiotemporal analysis of the inhabitants of this dynamic coastal ecosystem in Mexico, we found that the numbers of small settlements within mangroves increased during the study period despite a decline in mangrove stands and in the human populations inhabiting them. Extended rural developments have been banished to external buffer areas, whereas near-subsistence hamlets are increasingly occupying mangrove forest. The ability of mangroves to sequester atmospheric blue carbon relies on regional socioeconomic patterns and stressors that should be considered in the development of mangrove conservation initiatives. Our study enables identification of potential areas of research — e.g., forestry buffer zones, social exclusion, permanent settlements, and integral monitoring — that can incorporate the social dimensions of blue carbon conservation into the political and research agendas.
... While, maintaining the structure and function of ecosystems by addressing the unique problems of coastal zones. Management conservation of coastal areas in the long term aims to maintain the welfare of people living along the coast (Fujita et al., 2013). ...
The number of tourists visiting Wediombo is targeted to increase by 15% proportionally by Head of Yogyakarta Tourism of Indonesia in 2018. This study was conducted for roving the Wediombi of sustainable coastal tourism for almost a year. The concept would increase tourist motivation to visit it to. The problem indicated the performance of the supporting social communication and infrastructure was important to supporting coastal tourism activities. Therefore, the performance of the coastal tourism can still be improved by increasing some of the factors of sustainable coastal tourism proportionally. It would be discussed further in the discussion on. Without realized, this analyzed found other kind of potential coastal tourism. The local community did not know about for several traditional culinary tourisms. It can also help improve its performance, as well as economic growth of coastal communities and improve their welfare.
... These incentives might include public investments in preventative risk reducing and preparedness measures (including land use planning and nature-based solutions) . Fujita et al. (2013) argue that a suite of markets and financial tools ('ecomarkets') could be used to develop different investment portfolios that use coastal ecosystems services while maintaining ecosystem structure and function. Ecomarkets that could help bring high investments to conservation measures include direct payments for ecosystem services, catch shares for fisheries, water quality markets, insurances for flood control and shoreline, ocean energy, and markets to capture aesthetic and recreational services. ...
Coastal blue carbon activities are being implemented by a variety of countries, using different approaches. Existing regulatory regimes, including on coastal protection, are still very useful tools to protect and conserve mangroves, seagrasses and saltmarshes, and preserve their carbon value and role. These approaches suffer, however, from ‘traditional’ issues such as lack of enforcement, human and financial constraints as well as unclear or misguiding government mandates.
Successes are witnessed using a community‐based carbon project approach, ensuring high stakeholder participation via direct or indirect incentive programmes. Comprehensive coastal zone management approaches seem very promising, but success overall, and regarding carbon specifically, are yet to be reported.
The Paris Agreement has introduced new tools which could serve as means to trigger more and better coastal adaptation and mitigation efforts. Their implementation details are, however, still under negotiation and their impacts can only be expected in a few years.
... A glaring omission is aquaculture and associated conflicts over the use of ocean space. This would have been a great opportunity to introduce the concept of "ecomarkets" for dealing with conflicts in the coastal zone (Fujita et al., 2013). Nor is there discussion of climate change impacts on ocean resources or the economic costs of coastal disasters (Lynham and Noy, 2012). ...
... Therefore, the ecology and environment of the coastal zone have been undergone significant changes due to the impact of human and climate; and its ecological security and resource development mode has been transformed [18][19][20]. Therein to, the land use evolution and its ecosystem security responses are the most basis on implementing the regional sustainable exploitation and human society healthy development [21][22][23]. In recent years, there are a lot of relevant studies on the domestic and overseas; these study objects refer to the overall land cover and its ecological security responses; its research method is mainly by multiple land use indices of spatial-temporal patterns based on GIS and remote-sensing techniques, and its research scale includes cities, bays and estuaries [24][25][26][27][28] . ...
Silver Beach is a typical sandy plain coast located in the southeastern city of Beihai in Guangxi province, China. Because of its obvious land-use changes and ecosystem deterioration in recent decades, a sustainable development management and environmental protection project should be urgently proposed. Therefore, the remote-sensing images of Landsat are adopted to analyze the land use evolution and to evaluate its ecological security during the past 35 years in Silver Beach of this paper. The results show: in the period of 1979a–2013a, the areas of constructive land and artificial wetland are considerably increased and mainly transformed from cultivated land and forest land. The areas of cultivated land and forest land are substantially reduced accordingly, but the areas of grassland, water area and intertidal zone have no great extent of variation. Its land use intensities are consistently increased, but its land use diversities are abundant before 2000a and then significant decreased. Overall, the land use evolution presents slow in development speed, strengthen in development intensity, down in ecological richness and fragment in spatial patterns. In terms of ecological security, although there has short-term rising of ecological service value and security in 2006a, the whole structure, stability and ecological service function in Silver Beach are declined, and its vulnerabilities are accordingly increased. As a matter of fact, these results are achieved by shortly to improve the utilization rate of the artificial wetland and the intertidal zone resources with the cost of ecosystem structure and stability destruction. The impact factors of leading to above results are not only climatic factors as air temperature, typhoon, tide, but also even more important human activity factors as urbanization, sea reclamation, fishing, tourism and planning management in the studied time period. In consequence, the research findings from this study should be able to help understand the interacting mechanism among above multiple factors and to quantify respective contribution to land use evolution and its ecological security, which would provide an importantly scientific instruction for the future development management protection in Silver Beach.
... However, this approach requires strong regulatory control and access to plentiful data. Measures that make future benefits of precautionary action more salient, such as low-interest loan programs (e.g., the California Fisheries Fund), catch shares, and other incentive-based programs, may be helpful (Grimm et al. 2012, Fujita et al. 2013a). ...
... In Brazil, 14 of the 25 metropolitan areas in the country are found in estuaries where the main petrochemical complexes and port systems of the country are located, responsible for significant degradation of these ecosystems. The Estuarine System of Santos and São Vicente is the most important Brazilian example of environmental degradation by water and air pollution from industrial sources in coastal environments (Diegues 1987;Vrijheid 2000). ...
In Brazil, cardiovascular diseases account for 33% of deaths and the prevalence of hypertension is of approximately 22%. The Santos and São Vicente Estuarine System is the most important example of environmental degradation by chemicals from industrial sources. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of hypertension and its associated factors in the population of this estuary in the period 2006-2009. A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the aforementioned prevalence of hypertension in the evaluated areas, as well as risk factors for this disease in four contaminated areas located in the Estuary, and one area outside Estuary, the city of Bertioga. Associations between categorical variables were tested using Pearson's chi-square test incorporating Yates' correction, or Fisher's exact test. Single and multiple logistic regression models were applied to evaluate the risk factors for hypertension. The highest prevalence of hypertension was found in Continental São Vicente (28.4%). The risk factors for hypertension were the following: living in Center of Cubatão (OR: 1.3; IC95%: 1.0 – 1.6) and Continental São Vicente (OR: 1.4; IC95%: 1.1 – 1.8); illiterate (OR: 1.9; IC95%: 1.1 – 3.2); living in the area for more than 20 years (OR: 1.2; IC95%: 1.0 – 1.5); group of people aged 36-60 years (OR: 3.9; IC95%: 3.3 – 4.6) and who have had past occupational exposure (OR: 1.3; IC95%: 1.1 – 1.6). Results indicate that living in contaminated areas, especially for a longer time, is a risk factor for hypertension.
... However, this approach requires strong regulatory control and access to plentiful data. Measures that make future benefits of precautionary action more salient, such as low-interest loan programs (e.g., the California Fisheries Fund), catch shares, and other incentive-based programs, may be helpful (Grimm et al. 2012, Fujita et al. 2013a). ...
As climatic changes and human uses intensify, resource managers and other decision makers are taking actions to either avoid or respond to ecosystem tipping points, or dramatic shifts in structure and function that are often costly and hard to reverse. Evidence indicates that explicitly addressing tipping points leads to improved management outcomes. Drawing on theory and examples from marine systems, we distill a set of seven principles to guide effective management in ecosystems with tipping points, derived from the best available science. These principles are based on observations that tipping points (1) are possible everywhere, (2) are associated with intense and/or multifaceted human use, (3) may be preceded by changes in early-warning indicators, (4) may redistribute benefits among stakeholders, (5) affect the relative costs of action and inaction, (6) suggest biologically informed management targets, and (7) often require an adaptive response to monitoring. We suggest that early action to preserve system resilience is likely more practical, affordable, and effective than late action to halt or reverse a tipping point. We articulate a conceptual approach to management focused on linking management targets to thresholds, tracking early-warning signals of ecosystem instability, and stepping up investment in monitoring and mitigation as the likelihood of dramatic ecosystem change increases. This approach can simplify and economize management by allowing decision makers to capitalize on the increasing value of precise information about threshold relationships when a system is closer to tipping or by ensuring that restoration effort is sufficient to tip a system into the desired regime.
... Nonetheless, the full recovery of the environmental costs of the project remains difficult to be achieved. New solutions to limit environmental damage might come from the adoption of market tools based on incentivising payments for ecosystem services (PES) (Fujita et al., 2012). ...
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is a systematic process commonly employed by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to assess primarily benefits stemming from storm damage reduction and recreation enhancement by beach protection. The USACE goal is to quantify federal money disbursement to local communities to counter the consequences of coastal erosion. The EU has recommended the use of CBA for shoreline management (both at regional and local scales), looking not only at the financial aspects of project assessment, but also at non-market benefits (ecosystem services of the beaches) and environmental costs, assessed on a broad time horizon in a given sediment cell. In this paper, several ecosystem services provided by beach protection are considered and some of them monetised to assess the local net benefits of a nourishment project carried out along the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy. The paper shows that free riding emerges by the public supply of coastal protection, and that it could be possibly partially removed charging the cost of beach maintenance to the local users. In addition, supply of coastal protection may generate negative environmental externalities. However, costs of environmental damage of the beach nourishment are not easy to be internalised. This suggests alternative market mechanisms (charges or insurance premiums) to reduce the development pressure on coastal areas subject to high rates of erosion or to explore the adoption of subsides such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) at seascape scales.
... Over the past decade, there have been increasing calls for action to better address and manage for resilience to the effects of climate change on ecosystem services and human communities (Kettle 2012, Thorne et al. 2012). Public support for expenditures to conserve or restore these ecosystems may decrease if the benefits to human health and well-being are poorly addressed (Fujita et al. 2013). Our team of diverse stakeholders who want to manage for tidal marsh resilience believed that diverse ecosystem services should be considered, including plant productivity, sediment trapping, improved water quality, carbon sequestration, and flood mitigation (Duarte et al. 2013). ...
Decision makers that are responsible for stewardship of natural resources face many challenges, which are complicated by uncertainty about impacts from climate change, expanding human development, and intensifying land uses. A systematic process for evaluating the social and ecological risks, trade-offs, and cobenefits associated with future changes is critical to maximize resilience and conserve ecosystem services. This is particularly true in coastal areas where human populations and landscape conversion are increasing, and where intensifying storms and sea-level rise pose unprecedented threats to coastal ecosystems. We applied collaborative decision analysis with a diverse team of stakeholders who preserve, manage, or restore tidal marshes across the San Francisco Bay estuary, California, USA, as a case study. Specifically, we followed a structured decision-making approach, and we using expert judgment developed alternative management strategies to increase the capacity and adaptability to manage tidal marsh resilience while considering uncertainties through 2050. Because sea-level rise projections are relatively confident to 2050, we focused on uncertainties regarding intensity and frequency of storms and funding. Elicitation methods allowed us to make predictions in the absence of fully compatible models and to assess short- and long-term trade-offs. Specifically we addressed two questions. (1) Can collaborative decision analysis lead to consensus among a diverse set of decision makers responsible for environmental stewardship and faced with uncertainties about climate change, funding, and stakeholder values? (2) What is an optimal strategy for the conservation of tidal marshes, and what strategy is robust to the aforementioned uncertainties? We found that when taking this approach, consensus was reached among the stakeholders about the best management strategies to maintain tidal marsh integrity. A Bayesian decision network revealed that a strategy considering sea-level rise and storms explicitly in wetland restoration planning and designs was optimal, and it was robust to uncertainties about management effectiveness and budgets. We found that strategies that avoided explicitly accounting for future climate change had the lowest expected performance based on input from the team. Our decision-analytic framework is sufficiently general to offer an adaptable template, which can be modified for use in other areas that include a diverse and engaged stakeholder group.
... The purpose of offsets is to compensate for intentional damage to biodiversity and ecosystem services. At least 29 countries have policies requiring mandatory offsets for development approvals (Gibbons, 2010;McKenney and Kiesecker, 2010;Morandeau and Vilaysack, 2012;Fujita et al., 2013), although they are more commonly termed ''compensatory mitigation'' in the United States (Levrel et al., 2012). While policies differ, most are built around the central idea of the ''mitigation hierarchy'' which states that intentional impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services should first be avoided, then mitigated (also termed ''minimized''), and then any unavoidable and unmitigated residual impacts should be offset as a last resort (ten Kate et al., 2004). ...
... Catch share systems with harvest quotas or turfs are actively being promoted in the region as one such incentive. These management tools can help prevent overfishing, promote stability and ecological stewardship (Gutiérrez et al. 2010;Fujita et al. 2012). ...
The coastline of Northern Sonora is dominated by hypersaline estuaries and vast rocky intertidal zones that are intermittently covered by the extreme tides characteristic of the Northern Gulf of California. Research on the spatial-temporal distribution of flora and fauna in wetland, sandy-muddy bottoms, the pelagic zone, subtidal rocky reefs and an offshore island offer an in depth characterization of the region’s habitats and allow the definition of a unique biological Corridor for the coastal zone between Punta Borrascoso and Puerto Lobos, Sonora. Trophic studies and coupled oceanographic-biological models validated by larval dispersal and population genetic studies on commercial species highlight the connectivity between marine and coastal habitats and support the Corridor as a distinct management unit, especially for fisheries. Patterns of human use along the coast (fisheries, tourism and coastal development) have been documented and currently stakeholders in six communities are engaged in fisheries monitoring and management. The wealth of information available on this Corridor supports an ecosystem-based approach for fisheries management. The traditional hurdles to successful implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management can be overcome for the coastal fisheries of the Peñasco Corridor by defining essential habitats for important target species, identifying trophic interactions, involving fishers and coastal communities in spatial planning and decision-making, and creating a positive incentive system.
... First they can be employed to raise awareness about the weight of ecosystem services and damages humans provoke to them. Lack of awareness and of accurate information result in actions that, although unintentionally, harm coastal ecosystems; moreover the absence of strong signals about the value of ecosystem services (and connected benefits) encourages short-term wild exploitation (Van Beukering and Cesar, 2004;Fujita et al., 2013). ...
Zone Umide della Capitanata, located in the northeastern part of the Apulia Region, is one of the most extensive coastal wetlands of the Italian peninsula and one of the largest components of the Mediterranean wetland system. Despite its high ecological importance, this site has been undergoing a variety of pressures intensified in recent decades. This study analyzes and evaluates the changes occurred in this area between 2010 and 2020. Land cover and habitat maps were performed by photointerpretation and on-site surveys, and classified according to the FAO-LCCS and EUNIS taxonomies, respectively. To focus on local dynamics, four subset areas were analyzed separately. A set of landscape metrics was computed to analyze the landscape structure. The anthropogenic pressures affecting the study area were described through the DPSIR (Driving Forces-Pressures-State-Impact-Response) conceptual framework.
Numerous changes were identified, deriving from both finest thematic redefinition and anthropogenic pressures. Both class conversions and class modifications were identified and quantified by means of transition matrices. Most of the observed conversions were borne by classes belonging to saltmarshes and to coastal dune systems. In particular, landscape configuration of coastal dune classes was well highlighted by a set of specific landscape metrics. Agriculture practices and changes in water flow pattern turned out to be the main driving forces exerting pressures on these natural systems. Significant differences were found between the four subsets under analysis, thus, indicating that different management strategies lead to different levels of conservation.
Nature-based tourism and recreation is a cultural ecosystem service that provides a hopeful approach to conservation. Reliant on a combination of economic and non-economic values, tourism and recreation is also a commercial enterprise that funds and promotes the protection of biodiversity and has shown to be one of the most accessible ways to build positive relationships and restorative treatments of nature. Offering insight to answer questions about “why” and “how,” this dissertation disentangles some of the obscurity underlying decisions, collaboration, and self-governance that goes into the production of sustainable nature-based tourism. Using the introduction to set research into a broader conservation context, the dissertation begins with logic and assumptions about this form of nature protection. In Chapter Two, a cross-case comparative analysis is used to understand landowner motivations for developing nature-based tourism on private property. This chapter contributes new information about a working land use that can support the restoration of natural areas and builds onto land use theory by identifying factors and causal mechanisms that influence nature-based tourism use. Results suggest nature-based tourism is undertaken by those with a close connection to nature emotionally and vocationally and is established to re-create and share these connections with others, and in some cases, to make a living. Chapter Three approaches nature-based tourism as a complex system that requires planning and collaboration across multiple stakeholder groups to be sustainable. Using data obtained through nominal group meetings and questionnaires, this chapter details stakeholder perspectives and a process that could improve the outcomes of this market with the help of the Cooperative Extension Service. Next, considering system users, Chapter Four focuses on monitoring and mitigating the impacts of nature-based tourism on habitat and wildlife using a citizen-science toolkit designed around a universal surveying process and impact calculator. This chapter empowers end-users to identify, prevent, and reduce impacts to biological assets that face increasing pressures from the global rise in outdoor tourism and recreation. Finally, the dissertation ends with an analysis of research implications and recommendations that could improve the ability for this industry to expand conservation and recreation areas in the United States.
Zone Umide della Capitanata, located in the northeastern part of the Apulia Region, is one of the most extensive coastal wetlands of the Italian peninsula and one of the largest components of the Mediterranean wetland system. Despite its high ecological importance, this site has been undergoing a variety of pressures intensified in recent decades. This study analyzes and evaluates the changes occurred in this area between 2010 and 2020. Land cover and habitat maps were performed by photointerpretation and on-site surveys, and classified according to the FAO-LCCS and EUNIS taxonomies, respectively. To focus on local dynamics, four subset areas were analyzed separately. A set of landscape metrics was computed to analyze the landscape structure. The anthropogenic pressures affecting the study area were described through the DPSIR (Driving Forces-Pressures-State-Impact-Response) conceptual framework.
Numerous changes were identified, deriving from both finest thematic redefinition and anthropogenic pressures. Both class conversions and class modifications were identified and quantified by means of transition matrices. Most of the observed conversions were borne by classes belonging to saltmarshes and to coastal dune systems. In particular, landscape configuration of coastal dune classes was well highlighted by a set of specific landscape metrics. Agriculture practices and changes in water flow pattern turned out to be the main driving forces exerting pressures on these natural systems. Significant differences were found between the four subsets under analysis, thus, indicating that different management strategies lead to different levels of conservation.
Understanding the level of human impact on the marine environment requires integrated and ecosystem-based assessment. This research proposes a method based on geospatial modeling at the activity level to assess the potential impact of marine utilization on coastal management and conservation. Laizhou Bay in China was selected as a case study. The research identified the spatial distribution of economic sectors and the potential impact of that distribution on important marine ecological management zones. The findings reveal that, from high to low, threats exist in the bay-head, and to the east and west, and that marine ecological zones are over-used for open mariculture because the environmental impact of this activity is believed to be low. This paper reveals the spatial distribution of threats from a variety of marine-area uses on the ecology of Laizhou Bay. The findings provide support for policymakers in the implementation of marine ecological red-line policy and in the management of the utilization of the marine environment.
For millennia, coastal and marine ecosystems have adapted and flourished in the Red Sea’s unique environment. Surrounded by deserts on all sides, the Red Sea is subjected to high dust inputs and receives very little freshwater input, and so harbors a high salinity. Coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and mangroves flourish in this environment and provide socio-economic and environmental benefits to the bordering coastlines and countries. Interestingly, while coral reef ecosystems are currently experiencing rapid decline on a global scale, those in the Red Sea appear to be in relatively better shape. That said, they are certainly not immune to the stressors that cause degradation, such as increasing ocean temperature, acidification and pollution. In many regions, ecosystems are already severely deteriorating and are further threatened by increasing population pressure and large coastal development projects. Degradation of these marine habitats will lead to environmental costs, as well as significant economic losses. Therefore, it will result in a missed opportunity for the bordering countries to develop a sustainable blue economy and integrate innovative nature-based solutions. Recognizing that securing the Red Sea ecosystems’ future must occur in synergy with continued social and economic growth, we developed an action plan for the conservation, restoration, and growth of marine environments of the Red Sea. We then investigated the level of resources for financial and economic investment that may incentivize these activities. This study presents a set of commercially viable financial investment strategies, ecological innovations, and sustainable development opportunities, which can, if implemented strategically, help ensure long-term economic benefits while promoting environmental conservation. We make a case for investing in blue natural capital and propose a strategic development model that relies on maintaining the health of natural ecosystems to safeguard the Red Sea’s sustainable development.
Investments flowing into blue economy projects are estimated to be much lesser than the requirements, for achieving the targets set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Blue economy projects are typically financed through conventional means of public and development finance. However, the nature and characteristics of blue economy projects transcend the need to extend beyond the conventional financing options of multilateral/bilateral aid. The objective of this article is to assess if the existing blue economy initiatives are adequate to the sectoral investment needs and to develop contours of a framework that could accelerate the blue economy investments. The research finds that the current initiatives such as blue bonds are relatively small and accelerating investments requires access to additional financing instruments and a transformative change in participating stakeholders. Using a Theory of Change approach, contours of a framework that pools in low-cost funds from a diverse set of investors to be deployed for either public sector promoted large impact projects or individual blue economy projects through market-based instruments are suggested. The findings contribute to the ongoing debate on how to improve the financial capability of various blue economy stakeholders and enable them to configure more sustainable financing mechanisms.
Coastal zones are population and economy highly intensity regions all over the world, and coastal habitat supports the sustainable development of human society. The accurate assessment of coastal habitat degradation is the essential prerequisite for coastal zone protection. In this study, an integrated framework of coastal habitat degradation assessment including landuse classification, habitat classifying and zoning, evaluation criterion of coastal habitat degradation and coastal habitat degradation index has been established for better regional coastal habitat assessment. Through establishment of detailed three-class landuse classification, the fine landscape change is revealed, the evaluation criterion of coastal habitat degradation through internal comparison based on the results of habitat classifying and zoning could indicate the levels of habitat degradation and distinguish the intensity of human disturbances in different habitat subareas under the same habitat classification. Finally, the results of coastal habitat degradation assessment could be achieved through coastal habitat degradation index (CHI). A case study of the framework is carried out in the Circum-Bohai-Sea-Coast, China, and the main results show the following: (1) The accuracy of all land use classes are above 90%, which indicates a satisfactory accuracy for the classification map. (2) The Circum-Bohai-Sea-Coast is divided into 3 kinds of habitats and 5 subareas. (3) In the five subareas of the Circum-Bohai-Sea-Coast, the levels of coastal habitat degradation own significant difference. The whole Circum-Bohai-Sea-Coast generally is in a worse state according to area weighting of each habitat subarea. This assessment framework of coastal habitat degradation would characterize the landuse change trend, realize better coastal habitat degradation assessment, reveal the habitat conservation tendency and distinguish intensity of human disturbances. Furthermore, it would support for accurate coastal zone protection measures for the specific coastal area.
Tropical seas represent one of the largest marine biomes on earth and have diverse assemblages of marine flatfishes (616+ species). Tropical coastlines support large human populations with approximately 95% of the world's fisher population having access to 60% of the world's fishery resources. Within tropical seas and estuaries, anthropogenic factors affect the greatest diversity of flatfishes found anywhere. Tropical fisheries land only a small proportion of the total diversity of flatfishes directly for human consumption, but large numbers are also killed or damaged during industrial and artisanal trawl fisheries operations. As more desirable fish species become scarcer due to overfishing, more flatfishes are marketed to meet increasing local demands for fish protein. Overfishing and habitat destruction pose the most serious threats to tropical flatfishes. Basic life-history and ecological information is wanting for the majority of tropical flatfishes, therefore, only limited approaches are available to protect these species from over-exploitation.
Territorial user rights for fisheries are being promoted to enhance the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. Using Chile as a case study, we designed a market-based program aimed at improving fishers' livelihoods while incentivizing the establishment and enforcement of no-take areas within areas managed with territorial user right regimes. Building on explicit enabling conditions (i.e., high levels of governance, participation, and empowerment), we used a place-based, human-centered approach to design a program that will have the necessary support and buy-in from local fishers to result in landscape-scale biodiversity benefits. Transactional infrastructure must be complex enough to capture the biodiversity benefits being created, but simple enough so that the program can be scaled up and is attractive to potential financiers. Biodiversity benefits created must be commoditized, and desired behavioral changes must be verified within a transactional context. Demand must be generated for fisher-created biodiversity benefits in order to attract financing and to scale the market model. Important design decisions around these 3 components-supply, transactional infrastructure, and demand-must be made based on local social-ecological conditions. Our market model, which is being piloted in Chile, is a flexible foundation on which to base scalable opportunities to operationalize a scheme that incentivizes local, verifiable biodiversity benefits via conservation behaviors by fishers that could likely result in significant marine conservation gains and novel cross-sector alliances. Incentivar la Conservación de la Biodiversidad con Comunidades de Pesca Artesanal por medio de Derechos de Uso Territorial y la Innovación de Modelos de Negocio.
© 2015, Society for Conservation Biology.
Concern intensifying that emerging infectious diseases and global environmental changes that could generate major future human pandemics.
A focused literature review was undertaken, partly informed by a forthcoming report on environment, agriculture and infectious diseases of poverty, facilitated by the Special Programme for Tropical Diseases.
More than ten categories of infectious disease emergence exist, but none formally analyse past, current or future burden of disease. Other evidence suggests that the dominant public health concern focuses on two informal groupings. Most important is the perceived threat of newly recognised infections, especially viruses that arise or are newly discovered in developing countries that originate in species exotic to developed countries, such as non-human primates, bats and rodents. These pathogens may be transmitted by insects or bats, or via direct human contact with bushmeat. The second group is new strains of influenza arising from intensively farmed chickens or pigs, or emerging from Asian "wet markets" where several bird species have close contact. Both forms appear justified because of two great pandemics: HIV/AIDS (which appears to have originated from bushmeat hunting in Africa before emerging globally) and Spanish influenza, which killed up to 2.5% of the human population around the end of World War I. Insufficiently appreciated is the contribution of the milieu which appeared to facilitate the high disease burden in these pandemics. Additionally, excess anxiety over emerging infectious diseases diverts attention from issues of greater public health importance, especially: (i) existing (including neglected) infectious diseases and (ii) the changing milieu that is eroding the determinants of immunity and public health, caused by adverse global environmental changes, including climate change and other components of stressed life and civilisation-supporting systems.
The focus on novel pathogens and minor forms of anti-microbial resistance in emerging disease literature is unjustified by their burden of disease, actual and potential, and diverts attention from far more important health problems and determinants. There is insufficient understanding of systemic factors that promote pandemics. Adverse global change could generate circumstances conducive to future pandemics with a high burden of disease, arising via anti-microbial and insecticidal resistance, under-nutrition, conflict, and public health breakdown.
Using numerical models, effects of environmental variability upon yield were tested for six single-age fish stocks characterized by different kinds and degrees of density-dependent reproduction potential. The two levels of variability examined had extremes of yield standing in the ratios 7:1 and 18:1, respectively. Close regulation of fishing to the optimum percentage for each year's stock improves the long-term average catch taken, the improvement being the greater, the more variable the environment. With the higher level of variability, improvement in average catch among five of the stocks ranged from 26% to 79% increase. However this increase in mean catch is achieved at the expense of increased variability in catch from year to year—in fact, for some kinds of stocks there must be complete cessation of fishing in some years in order to get the long-term maximum. The yield of stocks, in which reproduction per spawner declines at low levels of abundance, is particularly improved by a close adaptation of fishing effort to the supply of fish available.When two or more populations of a species, characterized by different reproduction potentials, are fished in common, total potential catch is less than when each can be fished separately at its optimum level. If a common fishery cannot be avoided, the achievement of maximum average yield may find one of two originally-equal stocks as abundant or even more abundant than before the fishery began, while the other may persist only at a low level or even be exterminated completely.
"Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street," observed legendary speculator Jesse Livermore. History tells us that periods of major technological innovation are typically accompanied by speculative bubbles as economic agents overreact to genuine advancements in productivity. Excessive run-ups in asset prices can have important consequences for the economy as firms and investors respond to the price signals, resulting in capital misallocation. On the one hand, speculation can magnify the volatility of economic and financial variables, thus harming the welfare of those who are averse to uncertainty and fluctuations. But on the other hand, speculation can increase investment in risky ventures, thus yielding benefits to a society that suffers from an underinvestment problem.
Most debates on government fisheries management, focusing on dramatic fishery collapses, have skirted the ethical dimension implicit in the exploitation, for private gain, of fishery resources that are publicly owned. The privilege to fish, a conditional right often nefariously perceived as a legislated "right," implies ethical responsibilities linked to marine stewardship. To date, however, granting this privilege to fish
has not been legally tethered to the fiduciary responsibilities of
businesses to their clients or governments to their citizens:
sustainable management of fisheries and conservation of living marine resources. Legal rights must be coupled with moral responsibilities if governments, private fishing enterprises, and civil society are to conserve marine resources for present and future generations. Evolving a social contract for ethical fisheries that explicitly mandates collaborative governance and corporate responsibility can protect public goods and society's right to fish, both to eat and to exist in the sea.
The application of sound environmental valuation principles to the management of wildlife and natural protected areas generates important information for protected area policymaking. First, theoretically justified measures of impacts of these areas on social welfare provide compelling justification for increased public investments. Second, policymakers get to appreciate the magnitude of economic rents that such areas generate, which if captured and appropriately invested, could serve as a vehicle to promote their sustainable management and to support other social welfare goals in the vicinity of protected areas. Third, the generated information can be used to take advantage of in-country tourism product differentiation to price tourism sites differently for increasing the overall revenue from managing protected areas and finally, policymakers could design more innovative strategies to capture more of the non-pecuniary consumer surplus enjoyed by visitors to these areas. This paper surveyed where and how environmental valuation research has contributed to improved knowledge on managing protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa.
Fisheries science and management have been shrouded in controversy and rhetoric for over 125 yrs. Human reliance on fish through history (and even prehistory) has impacted the sea and its resources. Global impacts are manifest today in threatened food security and vulnerable marine ecosystems. Growing consumer demand and subsidized industrial fisheries exacerbate ecosystem degradation, climate change, global inequities, and local poverty. Ten commonly advocated fisheries management solutions, if implemented alone, cannot remedy a history of intense fishing and serial stock depletions. Fisheries policy strategies evaluated along five performance modalities (ecological, economic, social, ethical, and institutional) suggest that composite management strategies, such as ecosystem-based management and historically based restoration, can do better. A scientifically motivated solution to the fisheries problem can be found in the restorable elements of past ecosystems, if some of our present ideology, practices, and tastes can be relinquished for this historical imperative. Food and social security can be enhanced using a composite strategy that targets traditional food sources and implements customary management practices. Without binding laws, however, instituting such an ethically motivated goal for fisheries policy can easily be compromised by global market pressures. In a restored and productive ecosystem, fishing is clearly the privilege of a few. The realities of imminent global food insecurity, however, may dictate a strategy to deliberately fish down the food web, if the basic human right to food is to be preserved for all.
This paper uses an examination of the relations between indigenous management practices and formal regulations in the lobster fisheries of Maine and Newfoundland to revise some current assumptions about the nature of indigenous practices. It argues that many current conceptions of indigenous practices are based on a flawed theoretical position referred to as "soft evolutionism." A rejection of "soft evolutionism" leads to the realization that the greatest contribution of indigenous practices to the formation of formal regulations is not to be found in their unintended conservative effects, but in their ability to reveal the conscious goals and values of fishers.
We use the Business Roundtable’s challenge to the SEC’s 2010 proxy access rule as a natural experiment to measure the value of shareholder proxy access. We find that firms that would have been most vulnerable to proxy access, as measured by institutional ownership and activist institutional ownership in particular, lost value on October 4, 2010, when the SEC unexpectedly announced that it would delay implementation of the Rule in response to the Business Roundtable challenge. We also examine intra-day returns and find that the value loss occurred just after the SEC’s announcement on October 4. We find similar results on July 22, 2011, when the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of the Business Roundtable. These findings are consistent with the view that financial markets placed a positive value on shareholder access, as implemented in the SEC’s 2010 Rule.
In developing its tourist industry, the Mexican government had three main goals: earning foreign exchange, creating employment, and diverting internal migration toward tourism development poles. Statistics on employment and in-migration to Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta, Cancún, and Los Cabos show that it has been relatively successful in achieving these goals. However, Mexico has increased its dependency on loans, foreign capital, and foreign patronage and has imposed costs on the working class employed in low-waged and precarious tourist jobs, including de facto social and economic apartheid.
Formal analyses of long-term global marine fisheries prospects have yet to be performed, because fisheries research focuses on local, species-specific management issues. Extrapolation of present trends implies expansion of bottom fisheries into deeper waters, serious impact on biodiversity, and declining global catches, the last possibly aggravated by fuel cost increases. Examination of four scenarios, covering various societal development choices, suggests that the negative trends now besetting fisheries can be turned around, and their supporting ecosystems rebuilt, at least partly.
Abstract The second largest zone of coastal hypoxia (oxygen-depleted waters) in the world is found on the northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf adjacent to the outflows of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. The combination of high freshwater discharge, wind mixing, regional circulation, and summer warming controls the strength of stratification that goes through a well-defined seasonal cycle. The physical structure of the water column and high nutrient loads that enhance primary production lead to an annual formation of the hypoxic water mass that is dominant from spring through late summer. Paleoindicators in dated sediment cores indicate that hypoxic conditions likely began to appear around the turn of the last century and became more severe since the 1950s as the nitrate flux from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico tripled. Whereas increased nutrients enhance the production of some organisms, others are eliminated from water masses (they either emigrate from the area or die) where the...
Mangrove forests occur along ocean coastlines throughout the tropics, and support numerous ecosystem services, including fisheries production and nutrient cycling. However, the areal extent of mangrove forests has declined by 30-50% over the past half century as a result of coastal development, aquaculture expansion and over-harvesting. Carbon emissions resulting from mangrove loss are uncertain, owing in part to a lack of broad-scale data on the amount of carbon stored in these ecosystems, particularly below ground. Here, we quantified whole-ecosystem carbon storage by measuring tree and dead wood biomass, soil carbon content, and soil depth in 25 mangrove forests across a broad area of the Indo-Pacific region--spanning 30° of latitude and 73° of longitude--where mangrove area and diversity are greatest. These data indicate that mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics, containing on average 1,023Mg carbon per hectare. Organic-rich soils ranged from 0.5m to more than 3m in depth and accounted for 49-98% of carbon storage in these systems. Combining our data with other published information, we estimate that mangrove deforestation generates emissions of 0.02-0.12Pg carbon per year--as much as around 10% of emissions from deforestation globally, despite accounting for just 0.7% of tropical forest area.
Mangroves, the only woody halophytes living at the confluence of land and sea, have been heavily used traditionally for food, timber, fuel and medicine, and presently occupy about 181 000 km2 of tropical and subtropical coastline. Over the past 50 years, approximately one-third of the world's mangrove forests have been lost, but most data show very variable loss rates and there is considerable margin of error in most estimates. Mangroves are a valuable ecological and economic resource, being important nursery grounds and breeding sites for birds, fish, crustaceans, shellfish, reptiles and mammals; a renewable source of wood; accumulation sites for sediment, contaminants, carbon and nutrients; and offer protection against coastal erosion. The destruction of mangroves is usually positively related to human population density. Major reasons for destruction are urban development, aquaculture, mining and overexploitation for timber, fish, crustaceans and shellfish. Over the next 25 years, unrestricted clear felling, aquaculture, and overexploitation of fisheries will be the greatest threats, with lesser problems being alteration of hydrology, pollution and global warming. Loss of biodiversity is, and will continue to be, a severe problem as even pristine mangroves are species-poor compared with other tropical ecosystems. The future is not entirely bleak. The number of rehabilitation and restoration projects is increasing worldwide with some countries showing increases in mangrove area. The intensity of coastal aquaculture appears to have levelled off in some parts of the world. Some commercial projects and economic models indicate that mangroves can be used as a sustainable resource, especially for wood. The brightest note is that the rate of population growth is projected to slow during the next 50 years, with a gradual decline thereafter to the end of the century. Mangrove forests will continue to be exploited at current rates to 2025, unless they are seen as a valuable resource to be managed on a sustainable basis. After 2025, the future of mangroves will depend on technological and ecological advances in multi-species silviculture, genetics, and forestry modelling, but the greatest hope for their future is for a reduction in human population growth.
Saltmarshes are a major, widely distributed, intertidal habitat. They are dynamic systems, responding to changing environmental conditions. For centuries, saltmarshes have been subject to modification or destruction because of human activity. In this review, the range of factors influencing the survival of saltmarshes is discussed. Of critical importance are changes in relative sea level and in tidal range. Relative sea level is affected by changes in absolute sea level, changes in land level and the capacity of saltmarshes to accumulate and retain sediment. Many saltmarshes are starved of sediment because of catchment modification and coastal engineering, or exposed to erosive forces, which may be of natural origin or reflect human interference. The geographical distribution of individual saltmarsh species reflects climate, so that global climatic change will be reflected by changes in distribution and abundance of species, although the rate of change in communities dominated by perennial plants is difficult to predict. Humans have the ability to create impacts on saltmarshes at a range of scales from individual sites to globally. Pressures on the environment created by the continued increase in the human population, particularly in developing tropical countries, and the likely consequences of the enhanced greenhouse effect on both temperature and sea level give rise to particular concerns. Given the concentration of population growth and development in the coastal zone, and the potential sensitivity of saltmarsh to change in sea level, it is timely to review the present state of saltmarshes and to assess the likelihood of changes in the near (25 years) future. By 2025, global sea level rise and warming will have impacts on saltmarshes. However, the most extensive changes are likely to be the direct result of human actions at local or regional scales. Despite increasing recognition of the ecological value of saltmarsh, major projects involving loss of saltmarshes but deemed to be in the public interest will be approved. Pressures are likely to be particularly severe in the tropics, where very little is known about saltmarshes. At the local scale the cumulative impacts of activities, which individually have minor effects, may be considerable. Managers of saltmarshes will be faced with difficult choices including questions as to whether traditional uses should be retained, whether invasive alien species or native species increasing in abundance should be controlled, whether planned retreat is an appropriate response to rising relative sea level or whether measures can be taken to reduce erosion. Decisions will need to take into account social and economic as well as ecological concerns.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are of growing interest globally. They are principally studied from a biological perspective, with some cases documenting improved environmental conditions and increased fish yields. The MPAs that meet narrowly defined biological goals are generally presented as "successes." However, these same MPAs may, in fact, be social "failures" when social evaluation criteria are applied. A review of four MPAs in the Philippines and Indonesia demonstrates this scenario. The cases are reviewed using standard measures of biological and social success. Their historic and present management structures are reviewed. It is suggested that a strong linkage exists between social and biological success, with social considerations determining long-term biological success. This finding implies that standards for measuring both biological and social success should be applied equally and that MPAs should be designed to meet multiple social and biological goals. The evaluation and portrayal of MPAs has implications for the management of a particular MPA and the broader discourse surrounding marine environmental management.
Global concerns about the depletion of marine stocks have been widely documented in industrial fisheries. However, small-scale
artisanal fisheries constitute a second component for the world fishery crisis, normally ignored or erroneously lumped into
the industrial component. In this paper we first present a brief comparison between industrial and artisanal fisheries, highlighting
the differences between them and the differential feasibility for implementing management options. We propose that industrial
and artisanal fishery problems have to be treated separately and thus cannot be lumped into a single “fishing bag”. Among
artisanal fisheries, we focus on coastal benthic shellfisheries, highlighting that their sedentary or sessile nature make
them amenable to implement spatially-explicit management tools such as rotation of areas and territorial user rights (TURFs).
Then, using long-term catch trends and selected examples, we demonstrate the power and validity of co-management for some
Latin American shellfisheries, notably in Chile and Mexico, and stress the need to institutionalize the existent fishery knowledge.
Several idiosyncratic properties of co-management in our Latin American examples have been useful to sustain the resources
over time, including: (a) allocations of TURFs, (b) Community Fishery Quotas, which may be sub-allocated to families, (c)
community-based and family-oriented sociological and organizational context of co-management, which may drive short and long-term
market forces.
Coastal ecosystems including coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and salt marshes are being lost at alarming
rates, and increased scientific understanding of causes has failed to stem these losses. Coastal habitats receive contrasting
research effort, with 60% of all of the published research carried out on coral reefs, compared to 11–14% of the records for
each of salt marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows. In addition, these highly connected and interdependent coastal
ecosystems receive widely contrasting media attention that is disproportional to their scientific attention. Seagrass ecosystems
receive the least attention in the media (1.3% of the media reports) with greater attention on salt marshes (6.5%), considerably
more attention on mangroves (20%), and a dominant focus on coral reefs, which are the subject of three in every four media
reports on coastal ecosystems (72.5%). There are approximately tenfold lower reports on seagrass meadows in the media for
every scientific paper published (ten), than the 130–150 media reports per scientific paper for mangroves and coral reefs.
The lack of public awareness of losses of less charismatic ecosystems results in the continuation of detrimental practices
and therefore contributes to continued declines of coastal ecosystems. More effective communication of scientific knowledge
about these uncharismatic but ecologically important coastal habitats is required. Effective use of formal (e.g., school curricula,
media) and informal (e.g., web) education avenues and an effective partnership between scientists and media communicators
are essential to raise public awareness of issues, concerns, and solutions within coastal ecosystems. Only increased public
understanding can ultimately inform and motivate effective management of these ecologically important coastal ecosystems.
Severe declines in the cover of live hard coral on reefs have been reported worldwide, and in the Caribbean region, the architectural
complexity of coral reefs has also declined markedly. While the drivers of coral cover loss are relatively well understood,
little is known about the drivers of regional-scale declines in architectural complexity. We have used a dataset of 49 time
series reporting reef architectural complexity to explore the effect of hurricanes, coral bleaching and fishing on Caribbean-wide
annual rates of change in reef complexity. Hurricane impacts greatly influence reef complexity, with the most rapid rates
of decline in complexity occurring at sites impacted during their survey period, and with lower rates of loss occurring at
unimpacted sites. Reef architectural complexity did not change significantly following mass bleaching events (in a time frame
of <5years) or positive thermal anomalies. Although the rates of change in architectural complexity were similar in and out
of marine protected areas (MPAs), significant declines in complexity were observed inside but not outside of MPAs, possibly
because reductions in fishing can lead to increased bioerosion by herbivores within MPAs. Our findings suggest that major
drivers of coral mortality, such as coral bleaching, do not influence reef architectural complexity in the short term (<5years).
Instead, direct physical impacts and reef bioerosion appear to be important drivers of the widespread loss of architecturally
complex reefs in the Caribbean.
KeywordsCoral bleaching–Drivers of change–Environmental change–Ecosystem services–Habitat complexity–Hurricanes–Marine reserves–Reef degradation
Excess fishing capacity and the growth in global demand for fishery products have made overfishing ubiquitous in the world’s
oceans. Here we describe the potential catch losses due to unsustainable fishing in all countries’ exclusive economic zones
(EEZs) and on the high seas over 1950–2004. To do so, we relied upon catch and price statistics from the Sea Around Us Project as well as an empirical relationship we derived from species stock assessments by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. In 2000 alone, estimated global catch losses amounted to 7–36% of the actual tonnage landed that year, resulting
in a landed value loss of between 6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US). From 1950–2004, 36–53% of commercial species
in 55–66% of EEZs may have been overfished. Referring to a species-level database of intrinsic vulnerability (V) based on life-history traits, it appears that susceptible species were depleted quickly and serially, with the average V of potential catch losses declining at a similar rate to that of actual landings. The three continental regions to incur
greatest losses by mass were Europe, North America, and Asia—forming a geographic progression in time. But low-income and
small island nations, heavily dependent on marine resources for protein, were impacted most profoundly. Our analysis shows
that without the inexorable march of overfishing, ~20 million people worldwide could have averted undernourishment in 2000.
For the same year, total catch in the waters of low-income food deficit nations might have been up to 17% greater than the
tonnage actually landed there. The situation may be worst for Africa, which in our analysis registered losses of about 9–49%
of its actual catches by mass in year 2000, thus seriously threatening progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals.
KeywordsCatch loss-Food security-Undernourishment-Landed values
JEL ClassificationQ22-D57
This paper examines the main ways in which Payments for Environmental Services (PES) might affect poverty. PES may reduce poverty mainly by making payments to poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds. The extent of the impact depends on how many PES participants are in fact poor, on the poor’s ability to participate, and on the amounts paid. Although PES programs are not designed for poverty reduction, there can be important synergies when program design is well thought out and local conditions are favorable. Possible adverse effects can occur where property rights are insecure or if PES programs encourage less labor-intensive practices.
Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion was greeted as groundbreaking when it appeared in 2007, winning the Estoril Distinguished Book Prize, the Arthur Ross Book Award, and the Lionel Gelber Prize. Now, in The Plundered Planet, Collier builds upon his renowned work on developing countries and the world's poorest populations to confront the global mismanagement of natural resources. Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart, while the carbon emissions and agricultural follies of the developed world could further impoverish them. The Plundered Planet charts a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to dauntingly complex issues. Grounded in a belief in the power of informed citizens, Collier proposes a series of international standards that would help poor countries rich in natural assets better manage those resources, policy changes that would raise world food supply, and a clear-headed approach to climate change that acknowledges the benefits of industrialization while addressing the need for alternatives to carbon trading. Revealing how all of these forces interconnect, The Plundered Planet charts a way forward to avoid the mismanagement of the natural world that threatens our future.
you can download the pub from the website - https://www.wri.org/publication/reefs-risk-caribbean
Formal analyses of long-term global marine fisheries prospects have yet to be performed, because fisheries research focuses on local, species-specific management issues. Extrapolation of present trends implies expansion of bottom fisheries into deeper waters, serious impact on biodiversity, and declining global catches, the last possibly aggravated by fuel cost increases. Examination of four scenarios, covering various societal development choices, suggests that the negative trends now besetting fisheries can be turned around, and their supporting ecosystems rebuilt, at least partly.
Catch share systems may be an improvement over traditional fisheries management, but there are problems. T he Alaskan halibut fishery in the early 1990s was an intense, adrenaline-soaked sprint. Fishing was permitted during just a few 24-hour windows. Two thousand boats might race to sea at once, each crew work-ing madly to land a full year's catch in a day. Boats were overloaded with fish, and lives were lost: Nine work-ers drowned during derby fishing in Alaska during 1991 and 1992. In their hurry, fishers damaged creatures they were not targeting and lost much of their long-line gear, leaving thousands of baited hooks on the seafloor that imperiled halibut and other fish after the season had ended. When the catch was landed, the market was flooded with a year's worth of halibut at once, reducing its value. Then, in 1995, regulators abruptly ended the race for Alaskan halibut. The season expanded to months instead of days, and the value of the catch rose as fishers landed a steady supply of fresh halibut. Fishing accidents and fatalities dropped sharply. All of this was accom-plished using a management system called individual transferable quotas (ITQs), a form of catch shares manage-ment under which individual fishers or associations are given rights to a set percentage of the total catch. This new approach to fisher-ies management is used increasingly in the United States and around the world. It's clear that catch shares can end the dangerous and wasteful race simple. While catch share systems have important economic benefits, they can also carry real problems, and their bio-logical impacts remain unknown. Shrinking stocks and property rights Humanity's boundless appetite for seafood threatens fish stocks around to fish, but the idea remains controver-sial. Fishers working in small, mom-and-pop operations fear that catch shares will push them out of business. Proponents depict catch shares as a superpolicy, able to halt overfishing, revitalize coastal communities, and restore depleted fish stocks in a single bound. But critics say nothing is that BioScience 60: 780–785.
Increasing concerns regarding oil spills, air pollution, and climate change associated with fossil fuel use have increased the urgency of the search for renewable, clean sources of energy. This assessment describes the potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) to produce not only clean energy but also potable water, refrigeration, and aquaculture products. Higher oil prices and recent technical advances have improved the economic and technical viability of OTEC, perhaps making this technology more attractive and feasible than in the past. Relatively high capital costs associated with OTEC may require the integration of energy, food, and water production security in small island developing states (SIDSs) to improve cost-effectiveness. Successful implementation of OTEC at scale will require the application of insights and analytical methods from economics, technology, materials engineering, marine ecology, and other disciplines as well as a subsidized demonstration plant to provide operational data at near-commercial scales.
The damming of a river changes the flow of water, sediment, nutrients, energy, and biota, interrupting and altering most of a river`s ecological processes. This article discusses the importance of geomorphological analysis in river conservation and management. To illustrate how subtle geomorphological adjustments may profoundly influence the ecological relationships downstream from dames, three case studies are presented. Then a geomorphically based approach for assessing and possibly mitigating some of the environmental effects of dams by tailoring dam designed and operation is outlined. The cases are as follows: channel simplification and salmon decline on the McKenzie River in Oregon; Channel incision and reduced floodplain inundation on the Oconee river in Georgia; Increased stability of a braided river in New Zealand`s south island. 41 refs., 10 figs., 1 tab.
Two major shortcomings of the US Endangered Species Act have led to inefficient use of conservation dollars: (1) it only provides conservation protection to distressed or rapidly declining species, and (2) it does not take full advantage of the market to reduce costs in conservation. New, derivative-based insurance products (financial instruments designed to allow the commoditization and sale of risk) have been developed that allow investors to insure risk in exchange for fixed payments. Modifications to these financial derivatives, which are used to distribute risk and stabilize forecasts across many corporate and social scenarios, could allow purchasers to take preventative action to simultaneously protect their investment and decrease the likelihood of the insured event. We propose that governments issue modified derivative contracts to sell species' extinction risk to market investors and stakeholders. Using the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) in the US as an example, we show how a biodiversity derivatives program could proactively generate new funding, result in more cost-effective conservation, align stakeholders' interests, and create incentives for private conservation efforts.
Many modern fisheries management systems create incentives to overfish, leading to negative economic and environmental consequences for human welfare and marine ecosystem health. In this paper, we review problems faced by many fisheries managers, including overcapitalization, by-catch of nontarget species, and alteration of marine food webs. We recommend the formulation of alternative fisheries management goals based on risk-averse, multispecies management. We discuss alternative fisheries management systems, including transferable fishing privileges, community development quotas, and individual transferable quotas (ITQs). We argue that fostering fisheries conservation will require combining stringent performance criteria with alternative fisheries management designed to create incentives for sustainability.
Although coastal tourism is often looked to as a way of generating foreign revenue, it can also engender a range of social and environmental impacts. From an historical perspective, this article examines the growth of Cancún in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo since the late 1960s. The article documents a range of socioeconomic and environmental impacts associated with the rise of coastal tourism, and suggests that centralized planning and the provision of physical and financial infrastructure does not prevent those impacts. The principal causes of these impacts are also described, including changes in land-usage, population, tourism markets, foreign market penetration and control, an emphasis on short-term economic gain, weak regulatory enforcement, and an overall lack of integration of coastal zone management.
Using numerical models, effects of environmental variability upon yield were tested for six single-age fish stocks characterized by different kinds and degrees of density-dependent reproduction potential. The two levels of variability examined had extremes of yield standing in the ratios 7:1 and 18:1, respectively. Close regulation of fishing to the optimum percentage for each year's stock improves the long-term average catch taken, the improvement being the greater, the more variable the environment. With the higher level of variability, improvement in average catch among five of the stocks ranged from 26% to 79% increase. However this increase in mean catch is achieved at the expense of increased variability in catch from year to year—in fact, for some kinds of stocks there must be complete cessation of fishing in some years in order to get the long-term maximum. The yield of stocks, in which reproduction per spawner declines at low levels of abundance, is particularly improved by a close adaptation of fishing effort to the supply of fish available.When two or more populations of a species, characterized by different reproduction potentials, are fished in common, total potential catch is less than when each can be fished separately at its optimum level. If a common fishery cannot be avoided, the achievement of maximum average yield may find one of two originally-equal stocks as abundant or even more abundant than before the fishery began, while the other may persist only at a low level or even be exterminated completely.
The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr Ostrom uses institutional analysis to explore different ways - both successful and unsuccessful - of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the 'tragedy of the commons' argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.
Although existing fisheries management systems have largely failed, the public and most scientists believe this failure is due to overfishing and that the solution includes the precautionary approach, marine protected areas, and ecosystem management. We argue that the existing interpretations of ecosystem management have proved disastrous for the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery; that no obvious social and economic goal is associated with these interpretations; that maximization of total ecosystem yield would probably perpetuate overfishing on some stocks; and that "weak-stock" management will lead to major losses in potential yields. Although smaller-scale spatial management could prevent overfishing on weak stocks while allowing fishing of healthy stocks, eco-system management and other biological remedies fail to recognize the real problem: overcapitalization and the race for fish; the "solutions" commonly identified actually treat a symptom rather than the problem. Solutions do exist and have the common characteristic of changing the incentives to make what is good for an individual or group good for society. Examples already in place include community ownership of fishing grounds, cooperative fisheries, and rights-based fishing (e.g., individual transferable quotas).
The term ‘marine protected area’ (MPA) refers to areas in which human activities that cause reductions in populations either directly through exploitation or indirectly through habitat alteration are eliminated or greatly reduced. This spatially explicit approach to managing human impacts has many potential ecological and socio-economic benefits that can alleviate some of the problems fundamental to conventional management practices and can therefore complement, but is unlikely to supplant, the conventional practices (Allison et
al. 1998; Bohnsack 1998, Lauck et
al. 1998; Hastings & Botsford 1999; Murray et
al. 1999). Five reviews in this number of Environmental
Conservation summarize the main issues relevant to MPAs in the Western Mediterranean, our understanding of their ecological and management consequences, and our knowledge of the ecological and socio-economic processes that determine their effectiveness for fisheries management and conservation (Badalamenti et
al. 2000; García Charton et
al. 2000; Pinnegar et
al. 2000; Planes et
al. 2000; Sánchez Lizaso et
al. 2000). The reviews identify three issues of key importance to the development and success of MPAs for conservation and management. First, MPAs hold strong promise for management and conservation objectives, but the historical pattern of haphazard design, implementation, enforcement and evaluation has often produced equivocal and sometimes contradicting evidence for both their ecological effects and their effectiveness at achieving their intended objectives. Second, our understanding of many of the critical population and community processes that bear greatly on the consequences of this approach (e.g. dispersal, recruitment, direct and indirect effects of competition and predation) suffers from a lack of strong empirical studies and a comprehensive theoretical framework. Third, the global growth of interest in MPAs and concern for rapid development of organized systems of MPAs is great. Taken together, these three issues identify an urgent need for a well-developed theoretical framework, more rigorous empirical studies motivated and directed by theory, and actual implementation of systems of MPAs that will allow for proper evaluation and an evolution toward optimal design.
Industrial companies and environmentalists are traditional opponents. But conflict may not be necessary: there is money to be made in projects that embrace environmental goals.
The problem of the commons is more important to our lives and thus more central to economics than a century ago when Katharine Coman led off the first issue of the American Economic Review. As the U.S. and other economies have grown, the carrying-capacity of the planet - in regard to natural resources and environmental quality - has become a greater concern, particularly for common-property and open-access resources. The focus of this article is on some important, unsettled problems of the commons. Within the realm of natural resources, there are special challenges associated with renewable resources, which are frequently characterized by open-access. An important example is the degradation of open-access fisheries. Critical commons problems are also associated with environmental quality. A key contribution of economics has been the development of market-based approaches to environmental protection. These instruments are key to addressing the ultimate commons problem of the twenty-first century - global climate change.
The Problem to be ExaminedThe Reciprocal Nature of the ProblemThe Pricing System with Liability for DamageThe Pricing System with No Liability for DamageThe Problem Illustrated AnewThe Cost of Market Transactions Taken into AccountThe Legal Delimitation of Rights and the Economic Problem
Conservation biologists, policy makers, and citizens have identified the protection of native ecosystems in low-income nations as a global social objective. Among the more popular initiatives toward this objective is the use of development interventions in the peripheral areas of endangered ecosystems. Such interventions indirectly provide desirable ecosystem services by redirecting labor and capital away from activities that degrade ecosystems (e.g., agricultural intensification) and by encouraging commercial activities that supply ecosystem services as joint products (e.g., ecotourism). I examined the economics of such interventions and the available empirical evidence and concluded that development interventions are hindered by (1) the indirect and ambiguous conservation incentives that they generate, (2) the complexity of their implementation, and (3) their lack of conformity with the temporal and spatial dimensions of ecosystem conservation objectives. In contrast, paying individuals or communities directly for conservation performance may be a simpler and more effective approach. In recent years there has been widespread experimentation with contracting approaches to ecosystem conservation. Conservation contracting can (1) reduce the set of critical parameters that practitioners must affect to achieve conservation goals, (2) permit more precise targeting and more rapid adaptation over time, and (3) strengthen the links between individual well-being, individual actions, and habitat conservation, thus creating a local stake in ecosystem protection. In situations where performance payments are unlikely to work, indirect development interventions are also unlikely to work. Thus, despite the potential barriers to developing a system of conservation contracts in low-income nations, my analysis suggests that performance payments have the potential to improve the way in which ecosystems are conserved in these nations.
Fisheries management regimes take many forms, but most fail to designate shares of the catch. This failure creates strong
incentives for individuals to maximize their share without regard to long-term sustainability, because the benefits of conservation
actions do not accrue to individuals. The competition to maximize catch usually entails excessive capital investments in fishing
vessels and gear and intense fishing pressure, resulting in overfishing, high bycatch rates, and the use of large, efficient
types of gear that can harm habitat. Managers respond by increasing regulations, but this often exacerbates perverse incentives.
In addition, many fisheries could be producing more value than the current system permits, i.e. large quantities of fish are
landed during short seasons, forcing fishermen to sell for low prices. Conservation and economic problems facing fisheries
can be addressed in an integrated way, by designating access privileges (specifying shares of the catch) to individuals, harvest
cooperatives, fishing sectors, communities, or other appropriate entities. Designated Access Privilege (DAP) systems demonstrably
end the competition to maximize catch and often result in better conservation and financial performance. The cost of implementing
these systems can be relatively high and has been a barrier to better management. However, this doesn’t have to be so. Fisheries
could accept investments from a variety of sources and use a portion of the increased financial performance to repay recoverable
grants and loans. The key to protecting fish stocks, habitats, and the communities that depend on them will be to implement
DAPs that are appropriate for each fishery or community, making investments in sustainability, and creating financing mechanisms
that are themselves sustainable, drawing on the increased value that DAP fisheries can produce.
Marine scientists and policymakers are encouraging ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM), but there is limited guidance on how to operationalize the concept. We adapt financial portfolio theory as a method for EBFM that accounts for species interdependencies, uncertainty, and sustainability constraints. Illustrating our method with routinely collected data available from the Chesapeake Bay, we demonstrate the gains from taking into account variances and covariances of gross fishing revenues in setting species total allowable catches. We find over the period from 1962–2003 that managers could have increased the revenues from fishing and reduced the variance by employing EBFM frontiers in setting catch levels.
The effectiveness of managing fisheries through the allocation of catch rights, including Individual Transferrable Quota's (ITQs), has been the subject of a number of recent reviews. Inspection of these reviews suggests that the effectiveness of ITQ and similar catch rights schemes in meeting single species sustainability objectives differs from their effectiveness in meeting broader Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management objectives, especially in terms of managing effects on associated and dependent species and habitats. This should not be a surprise, given the attributes of rights-based neoliberal market policy instruments, as discussed here.