Valuing the environment as input: review of applications to mangrove-fishery linkages

The following paper reviews recent developments in the methodology for valu ing the role of wetlands in supporting economic activity. The main focus wi ll be on mangroves serving as a breeding ground and nursery habitat in supp ort of coastal and marine fisheries. As this particular ecological function of a mangrove system means that it is effectively an unpriced 'environment al' input into fisheries, then it is possible to value this contribution th rough applying the production function approach. The first half of the pape r overviews the procedure for valuing the environment as an input, applied to the case of a wetland supporting a fishery. Both the 'static' Ellis-Fish er-Freeman approach and the 'dynamic' approach developed by Barbier and Str and, incorporating the intertemporal bioeconomic fishing problem, are revie wed. 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 Campe che, Mexico, which is based on the dynamic approach. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.