The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected Areas

Luke M. Brander; Pieter van Beukering; Lynn Nijsten; Alistair McVittie; Corinne Baulcomb; Florian V. Eppink; Jorge Amrit Cado van der Lelij

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103953

The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected Areas

Luke M. Brander^*, Pieter van Beukering, Lynn Nijsten, Alistair McVittie, Corinne Baulcomb, Florian V. Eppink, Jorge Amrit Cado van der Lelij

^*Corresponding author for this work

Environmental Economics

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

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Abstract

Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact.

Original language	English
Article number	103953
Pages (from-to)	1-12
Number of pages	12
Journal	Marine Policy
Volume	116
Early online date	20 Mar 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103953
Publication status	Published - Jun 2020

Funding

This work was supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature Netherlands Office ( WWF-Netherlands . The funding source had no involvement in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Keywords

Cost-benefit analysis
Ecosystem services
Global expansion scenarios
Marine protected areas

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected AreasFinal published version, 1.41 MBLicence: Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act

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title = "The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected Areas",

abstract = "Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact.",

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AU - Brander, Luke M.

AU - van Beukering, Pieter

AU - Nijsten, Lynn

AU - McVittie, Alistair

AU - Baulcomb, Corinne

AU - Eppink, Florian V.

AU - Cado van der Lelij, Jorge Amrit

PY - 2020/6

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N2 - Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact.

AB - Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact.

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KW - Ecosystem services

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KW - Marine protected areas

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The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected Areas

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Persistent URL (handle)

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