Jun 8 2009
Protecting valuable marine resources could offset projected economic costs of climate change, according to a new WWF report issued today.
Future Seas is based on two scenarios developed by a representative group of fishers, scientists, energy experts, community leaders, eco-tour operators, environmentalists, and Mäori and government representatives.
The report examines the long-term future of New Zealand’s marine environment, which faces tremendous outside pressure on its resources, including from fishing and mineral extraction, competing interests within the marine environment, and pollution of marine habitats.
Researchers concluded that New Zealand must take major steps to protect the country’s marine resources from the effects of climate change – steps that also could be replicated in other countries.
In particular, they highlighted the importance of marine reserves and Marine Protected Area’s (MPAs) as economic drivers to counteract the costs associated with those changes.
A Marine Protected Area is an official area of protection with boundaries that encompass part of the ocean, and is meant to shield marine resources, whether environmental, historical, or cultural.
“The Selling by the Litre” scenario plays out in a world where climate change follows the most optimistic Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prognosis, in which people and the environment gradually adapt to new climactic conditions.
In contrast, the “Acting Local” scenario is defined by the most pessimistic IPCC climate change outcome. Environmental change in this scenario is rapid and widespread.
“Both scenarios highlighted that there is scope for much more extensive activity in the seas and that access to the ocean’s resources could generate economic boom or recession,” according to the report. “On the other hand, closer analysis of predicted climate change impacts showed that many marine species are likely to come under severe stress in the next 50 years and the stability of ecosystems is not guaranteed.”
The report’s authors also said that marine reserves do not need to detract from the potential value of the marine economy.
Marine reserves can enhance a number of non-extractive activities and add value to activities undertaken outside of reserves, for example by providing scientific baseline information, enabling more informed ocean exploration, or by conserving a pool of genetic diversity which could improve species health in other areas.
“In these two scenarios, at least, the opportunity costs of the reserves and costs of transformation were minimal compared to the eventual benefits and the costs of climate change,” the report states. “In fact, they were more like an insurance investment, which allowed the communities to prepare themselves for the changes that were inflicted by larger forces such as climate change, intensification of the human activity in the sea, or change of property regime.”