Political and economic
forces are often the primary cause of biodiversity loss worldwide.
Tropical rainforests, coral reefs, wetlands, and other rich natural
habitats are degraded by logging, agricultural expansion,
over-fishing, and other unsustainable resource use. Unenforceable
policies often prevent adequate protection of parks and reserves.
Recognizing
the powerful role of these forces in biodiversity loss, EVVEN has
used economics to seek solutions to issues impacting conservation at
the global, national and field site level.
Rapid Assessment of
Conservation Economics: A new way to use economics to gain a rapid
and intense understanding of development trends and other elements
that threaten critical ecosystems. Economic Rapid Assessments
identify opportunities for conservation and evaluate alternative
methods of mitigating threats.
The Cordillera del
Cutucu is part of the Andean biodiversity Hotspot and integral to
CI's northern Andean biodiversity corridor. This area houses vast
tracts of untouched forest, including stands of increasingly rare
mahogany. The topographical gradient of the Cordillera makes it home
to important and unique biodiversity, and a variety of habitats.
This area is presently threatened by a variety of human activities,
including rapidly expanding agriculture resulting from increased
migration to the region, poorly designed road development plans that
will provide access to the most pristine forests of the Cordillera,
and predatory logging of mahogany and other high-valued tree
species.
La
Fundacion La Salle / EDIMAR has
conducted socio-economic assessments to define the geographic scope
and urgency of these threats, and to analyze the local people's
incentives to develop. Once the economic incentives driving the
current development are thoroughly identified, a strategy can be
developed to offset those incentives through conservation
interventions.
In
the Gulf of California, economic analyses are being prepared to
underpin a public-private alliance between the government, NGOs, and
the shrimp fishing industry to secure effective management of the
area's resources, and to conserve biodiversity. This area is
considered to be one of the world's five most important marine and
coastal ecosystems, in terms of the conservation world. The Gulf of
California contains high levels of biodiversity and great natural
beauty.
This
ecosystem also maintains extremely important ecological processes
that serve as reproductive, nesting and nursing sites for a large
quantity of resident and migratory species.
The
shrimp fishery, South America's largest in economic terms, apart
from the Oil producing factor is facing a financial and
environmental crisis. Fundacion La Salle / EDIMAR's past research
has indicated that fishing levels are far above the carrying
capacity of the area, and the fishing fleets are too large. This
excessive fishing effort, according to EVVEN 's economic analysis of
the shrimp
industry,
revealed that profit margins have declined and that returns on
capital invested are economically unattractive. Environmentally, the
fishery faces over-exploitation of shrimp stocks, biodiversity loss,
and habitat degradation.
EVVEN
has developed a "win-win" strategy to help secure
biodiversity conservation and make the shrimp culture
economically and environmentally sustainable. To
learn more about EVVEN C.A. please read the Executive
Summary most of the papers serve as Background
information, to get in touch with us please go to contact
