Economic Incentives for Marine and Coastal Conservation Prospects, Challenges and Policy Implications Earthscan Oceans Series

Marine and coastal resources provide millions of people with their livelihoods, such as fishing and tourism, and a range of critical additional ?ecosystem services?, from biodiversity and culture to carbon storage and flood protection. Yet across the world, these resources are fast-diminishing under the weight of pollution, land clearance, coastal development, overfishing, natural disasters and climate change.

This book shows how economic instruments can be used to incentivize the conservation of marine and coastal resources. It is shown that traditional approaches to halt the decline focus on regulating against destructive practices, but to little effect. A more successful strategy could be to establish schemes such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), or incorporate an element of financial incentives into existing regulatory mechanisms. Examples, both terrestrial and marine, from across the world suggest that PES can work to protect both livelihoods and environments.

But to succeed, it is shown that these schemes must be underpinned by robust research, clear property rights, sound governance structures, equitable benefit sharing, and sustainable finance. Case studies are included from south and east Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australia. The book explores the prospects and challenges, and draws lessons from PES and PES-like programmes from across the globe.

Foreword Prof U. Rashid Sumaila Foreword Camilla Toulmin 1. Introduction 2. Using Valuation to Make the Case for PCMES: Promoting Investments in Marine and Coastal Ecosystems as Development Infrastructure 3. Promoting Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Functions through Direct Economic Incentives: the Case for Multilevel Good Governance 4. Payments for Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services and the Governance of Common Pool Natural Resources 5. Integrated Payments for Ecosystem Services: a Governance Path from Lakes and Rivers to Coastal Areas in China 6. Payments for Marine Ecosystem Services and Food Security: Lessons from Income Transfer Programmes 7. Allocation of Fishing Rights to Support Local Fishermen in South Africa’s Western Cape 8. Economic and Non-economic Conditions Affecting Sustainable Aquaculture: Why Don’t Small Shrimp Producers Participate in Organic Certification Schemes? 9. Could Payment for Environmental Services Reconcile Fish Conservation with Small-scale Fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon? 10. Payments for Hilsa Fish (Tenualosa ilisha) Conservation in Bangladesh 11. Payments to Landholders for Managing Water, Land and Ecosystem (WLE) Services in Coastal Agricultural Catchments for Protecting the Great Barrier Reef 12. Africa’s Mangrove Habitats: Prospects and Challenges of Payment for Coastal and Marine Ecosystem Services 13. Economic Instruments for Sustainability in Mexico’s Marine Protected Areas and the Perverse Subsidy Challenge

Essam Yassin Mohammed is an Environmental Economist at the International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK.