In Japan, fishers plant trees in upstream watersheds, known as “fishery forests,” to improve coastal environments and secure fishery production. Based on observation and experience, fishers have ...traditionally believed that their practices are fit for their intended purpose. Fishers have found it difficult to continue their practices due to budget constraints caused by a recent decline in coastal fisheries. As such, they are currently faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to restore watershed forests to improve the coastal environments or minimize expenses in an effort to secure financial sustainability. This draws attention to further issues: whether or not fishers can obtain a net return on their efforts, and if so—when. To this end, we examine the economic value of the traditional ecological knowledge using data of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in Hiroshima, Japan. The results show that, while fishery forests mostly pay their costs in the long run, the costs are higher than the benefits for the first several years because of the initial costs of afforestation. With the aim of contributing to holistic watershed management, we propose policy instruments that could be employed to alleviate front-loaded costs so that fishers can engage in traditional ecological knowledge-based practices.
•Fishers plant trees upstream watershed to improve coastal environments in Japan•Tree-planting pays its cost in the long run but much more front-loaded•Recent budget constraint of fishers makes it difficult to sustain their practices•Holistic watershed management linking land and sea is urgently required•The essence of fishers' knowledge helps us explore such public policy alternatives
This paper presents the first comprehensive synthesis of economic valuations of wetlands in developing countries. Meta-regression analysis (MRA) is applied to 1432 estimates of the economic value of ...379 distinct wetlands from 50 countries. We find that wetlands are a normal good, wetland size has a negative effect on wetland values, and urban wetlands and marine wetlands are more valuable than other wetlands. Wetland values estimated by stated preferences are lower than those estimated by market price methods. The MRA benefit transfer function has a median transfer error of 17%. Overall, MRA appears to be useful for deriving the economic value of wetlands at policy sites in developing nations.
Forest owners in Florida are often natural advocates of wildlife conservation. Unfortunately, some landowners choose to remain silent about imperiled species on their lands, which challenges ...government efforts to track species recovery. It is often assumed that landowner resistance towards wildlife regulations is economic in nature. However, when motivations for certain management behaviors are not economic in nature, the effectiveness of governmental regulations and incentives are not well understood. This paper is the first to investigate the economic and intrinsic motivations of family forest owners to protect imperiled wildlife species by defining landownership as a cultural ecosystem service, giving rise to personal identity benefits. We used a choice experiment format and Likert scale questions to characterize the personal identity constructs of family forest owners and their response to wildlife policies. We found many family forest owners are skeptical of government involvement, despite offers of a cost-share and a regulatory assurance. We conclude that when costs are low, or not well understood, forest owners' are more often motivated by the cultural values that uphold their personal identity constructs. Key in explaining changes in forest owner welfare was the importance placed on autonomy in making management decisions.
•Examines the economic and non-economic motivations of family forest owners•Classifies landownership and identity benefits as a cultural ecosystem service•Forest owners may have lexicographic preferences for stewardship identity benefits.•Policies should account for the cultural services provided by private lands.
Understanding the cultural contributions of ecosystems is essential for recognising how environmental policy impacts on human well-being. We developed an integrated cultural ecosystem services (CES) ...valuation approach involving non-monetary valuation through a eudaemonic well-being questionnaire and monetary valuation through hedonic pricing. This approach was applied to assess CES values on the west coast of Scotland. The impact of scenic area and marine protected area (MPA) designations on CES values and potential trade-offs with aquaculture, an increasingly important provisioning ecosystem service in the region, were investigated. Results confirmed a eudaemonic well-being value structure of seven factors: engagement and interaction with nature, place identity, therapeutic value, spiritual value, social bonds, memory/transformative value, and challenge and skill. Visibility of, but not proximity to aquaculture negatively influenced housing prices. In contrast, proximity to MPAs and visibility of scenic areas increased property values. All eudaemonic well-being value factors were positively and significantly associated with scenic areas and a subset of these with MPAs. The integration of the two methods can provide decision-makers with a more comprehensive picture of CES values, their relation to conservation policies and interactions and trade-offs with other activities and services.
•Integrated valuation of marine/coastal cultural ecosystem services (CES).•Mixed methods including revealed preferences and psychometric approach.•Presence of aquaculture negatively influences housing prices.•Conservation designations associated with higher property values.•Eudaemonic well-being is strongly felt and clearly affected by different marine activities interacting with CES.
Protected areas (PAs) and payments for ecosystem services (PES) are the top two mechanisms available for countries to achieve international REDD agreements, yet there are few empirical comparisons of ...their effects. We estimate the impacts of PAs and PES on forest conservation, poverty reduction, and population change at the locality level in Mexico in the 2000s. Both policies conserved forest, generating an approximately 20–25% reduction in expected forest cover loss. PES created statistically significant but small poverty alleviation while PAs had overall neutral impacts on livelihoods. Estimates by individual policy type for the same level of deforestation risk indicate that biosphere reserves and PES balanced conservation and livelihood goals better than strict protected areas or mixed-use areas. This suggests that both direct and incentive-based instruments can be effective, and that policies combining sustainable financing, flexible zoning, and recognition of local economic goals are more likely to achieve conservation without harming livelihoods.
Seafood sector can contribute to the global food supply in an important way, and provide an important source of animal protein. Based on observed regional trends in seafood production and consumption ...and using a global, partial-equilibrium, multi-market model, this study investigates what the global seafood market may look like in 2030. The model projects that the total fish supply will increase from 154 million tons in 2011 to 186 million tons in 2030, with aquaculture entirely responsible for the increase. The fastest aquaculture growth is expected for tilapia and shrimp, while the largest expansion is expected in India, Latin America and Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Fast-growing seafood demand in China and elsewhere represents a critical opportunity for global fisheries and aquaculture to improve their management and achieve sustainable seafood economy.
Scientific evidence reveals that renewable resource stock dynamics are subject to uncertainty due to changes in environmental conditions. Despite its critical impacts on management, little is known ...about the effects of such uncertainty on the formation of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). In this paper, we design a dynamic stock recruitment framework to examine this issue in a common pool setting. We find that stock growth uncertainty critically affects equilibrium behaviors under both open loop membership and dynamic membership. For instance, we delineate conditions under which uncertainty induces full non-cooperation in equilibrium. Strategic behaviors may also shift equilibrium outcomes from full non-cooperation under deterministic conditions to full cooperation under uncertainty when countries anticipate a small environmental variability. Moreover, strategic interactions to extract the resource stock may lead to higher individual payoffs under uncertainty. We also outline the differences in equilibrium responses of membership, harvest, and payoff to mean preserving spreads under both open loop membership and dynamic membership.
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 US ...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.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are deficient of domestic fossil energy sources and depend significantly on imported fuels. Since the oil shock in the 1970s, all three countries have promoted ...renewable energy as an alternative energy source to improve energy security. Currently, renewable energy is being promoted to build low-carbon economies. This study reviews the development of renewable energy policies and roadmaps. It also examines and compares strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of these countries in the context of advancing renewable energy policies and technologies and expanding domestic renewable energy installations, as well as strategically positioning themselves in the international renewable energy market as exporters of clean energy technologies. Through the SWOT analysis, this paper identifies a capacity for additional renewable energy deployment in these countries and highlights the necessity of increased cooperation between the three countries to strengthen their domestic and regional renewable energy sectors and compete in the global renewable energy market in the post-Fukushima era.
•Japan, South Korea and Taiwan need to develop renewable energy (RE).•These countries have been too conservative to achieve a notable share of RE.•Pro-nuclear energy policies have hindered the RE development in these countries.•The Fukushima disaster made these countries more favorable to RE.•Joint cooperation for R&D and deployment of RE is recommended.
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