The FISH-BE model has shown that regulated fishing through Marine Protected Area (MPA) Networks could increase fish catch – while improving the state of the marine ecosystem in key areas in the country.

This simulated study from the FISH-BE model means that regulated fishing could help feed the poor and hungry population in the long run, better than the current practice of overfishing. Other studies have also shown that 50% of marine areas need to be protected and regulated to counter the effects of years of overfishing, fishing malpractices, and other factors like climate change.

“This would seem to be an impossible task”, said Dr. Porfirio Aliño of the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman, during his ADSS presentation on 15 February 2011. He later added that in terms of fisheries management, the cost of doing nothing is much greater.

Dr. Aliño furthered that MPA’s should be implemented in the context of a network or networks of MPAs, working together to achieve a goal. As example, he cited the practice of regulating the efforts of a network of fishing municipalities under a joint alliance within a bay.

His presentation, titled Integrating Marine Biodiversity Conservation Strategies with the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management, also highlighted the current initiatives towards protecting the marine environment, like the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) and the different tools available for improving marine ecosystems management, including decision support systems (DSS) tools.

The Coral Triangle Initiative was formed through the partnership of six countries in the coral triangle area, namely: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. The countries committed themselves to proactively implementing measures to protect the area’s resources for future generations. The CTI’s goals include: managing priority seascapes, applying the ecosystems approach to fisheries management, establishing and effectively managing MPAs, applying climate change adaptation measures, and improving the status of threatened species.

According to Dr. Aliño, the Philippines is the global center of marine diversity.  Found at the apex of the coral triangle, the country is being subjected to the harmful effects of climate change.  As a government research and development initiative, and one of the coral triangle region's models for climate change adaptation, a local program called ICE CREAM (Integrated Coastal Enhancement: Coastal Research Evaluation and Adaptive Management) is being implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Dr. Aliño serves as the program leader.

Initiatives like CTI and ICE CREAM, coupled with the effective implementation of MPAs, could help improve the resilience of our marine ecosystems and increase biodiversity. This will, in turn, increase fish yield and address food security concerns in the region. (Regine Joy P. Evangelista)

DISCLAIMER:
The point of view taken by this article is entirely that of the presenter's and does not reflect in any way, SEARCA’s position.

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SHORT COURSE ON

VALUES AND INSTITUTIONS OF BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEMS

By Dr. Franz Gatzweiller

Senior Scientist

Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn, Germany

Department of Economic and Technological Change, University of Bonn, Germany

9-12 November 2010

SEARCA, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

The loss of biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services is frequently not detected by the current market system because they have no value and are treated as if they were free gifts of nature. This blindness of the market towards the values of nature is also referred to as market failure or as an economic compass which needs to be fixed in order to guide human behavior into the desired direction. Fixing the compass is done by economic valuation. This is the idea behind The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) that constitutes a “major international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation”.

Explaining biodiversity loss by market failure, however, is only as useful for solving realworld problems as the real-world conditions match the pre-analytic concepts and assumptions of the theory. Accepting market failure as the (only) reason for biodiversity loss, assumes that with non-failing markets, biodiversity would not be lost. Unfortunately the economic model of human behavior and the features of biodiversity are modeled too simple and do not take account of system complexity and value plurality, although both have been explicitly recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Despite its usefulness in expressing value in one unifying language understood by all, the problem with economic valuation is that underlying the attempt to attach a value to biodiversity components are perceptions of value and ethics held by economics itself. These values are reproduced by the attempt to attach an economic value; thereby narrowing down the options for choosing how to value and make decisions. The concept of economic values refers to instrumental values and neglects a further reaching discussion of ethics, which is essential for making significant and long-lasting gains in biodiversity conservation. However, values of biodiversity are neither merely instrumental nor merely intrinsic; and above all they do not necessarily exist independently to be discovered as objective truths. The meaning of ethics is therefore essential for conserving biodiversity, as ethics reflects worldviews and norms of how societies think the world around us is supposed to be and we should decide. Understanding values as mechanisms to reproduce existing institutions, such as the market, leads to the second order question of which value articulating institutions we choose. It is a choice we need to make to escape the predominant and invasive culture of valuing purely economically.

The course will focus on and provide food for thought and insight with regards to the
following questions:
1) What is value and the value of what?
2) Whose values count and why value?
3) How to value and how to choose how to value?
4) How does the socio-cultural context influence valuation?

Twenty-five Southeast Asian graduate students, junior faculty, and research staff are expected to attend the course.

This Short Course is funded by the Food Security Center (FSC) from the University of Hohenheim, which is part of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) program “Exceed” and is supported by DAAD and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).