Incentive-based approaches in marine conservation: Applications for sea turtles

Abstract

the benefi ts are non-market values, notably existence values and to a lesser extent indirect use values, and these benefi ts accrue to people far removed from resource owners and users.In contrast, the costs of conservation largely fall on local communities, and are immediate and tangible through lost incomes and foregone consumption of resources.Although global benefi ts from sustainable management may outweigh gains from destructive practices, at the level of decisionmakers or resource-users the benefi ts from unsustainable use often exceed those from sustainable management (Balmford et al. 2002).In addition, reducing harvests in the present to maintain stocks in the future may require resource-users to give up income for a period; indeed sustainability may require harvest to be permanently reduced for some resources, implying that users would need to give up income for the long term.The challenge relates to creating structures and economic alternatives that make foregoing income from destructive resource-use a viable and preferred option for resource-users and decision-makers at different scales.In other words, decision-makers need to see tangible incentives to change resource-use patterns if sustainable management and conservation of marine biodiversity is to be achieved.The role of incentives in conservation efforts is receiving