Valuing the Environment as Input: Review of Applications to Mangrove-Fishery Linkages

Abstract

The following paper reviews recent developments in the methodology for valuing the role of wetlands in supporting economic activity. The main focus will be on mangroves serving as a breeding ground and nursery habitat in support of coastal and marine fisheries. As this particular ecological function of a mangrove system means that it is effectively an unpriced 'environmental' input into fisheries, then it is possible to value this contribution through applying the production function approach. The first half of the paper overviews the procedure for valuing the environment as an input, applied to the case of a wetland supporting a fishery. Both the 'static' Ellis-Fisher-Freeman approach and the 'dynamic' approach developed by Barbier and Strand, incorporating the intertemporal bioeconomic fishing problem, are reviewed. The second half of the paper discusses briefly two recent case studies of mangrove-fishery valuation. An application in South Thailand, which is based on the static Ellis-Fisher-Freeman model and an application in Campeche, Mexico, which is based on the dynamic approach.

Keywords: Ecological functions, Environmental valuation, Fisheries, Habitat-fishery linkages, Mangroves