Coral Reef Ecosystem Services Economic Valuation Experiences From The South Pacific

Abstract

Economic approaches through ecosystem services (ES) valuation are increasingly recommended by several multilateral agencies and conservation organisations to face main market externalities affecting biodiversity in general and coral reef ecosystems. Nonetheless, the ES approach is recent and still has to prove its effectiveness for policymaking and design of market based instruments. In this dissertation, we will analyse the experience of two economic valuations of coral reef ecosystems in the Pacific focusing on two aspects. The first is to evaluate if current methods of Coral Reef Ecosystem Services Valuation (CRESV) permits to transmit a correct signal about ES and the second is to assess the impacts of results on policy-making and market externalities. [...]