Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The ecnonomic goodness of reefs and mangroves

Reports of a UN report on the economic value of coral reef and tropical mangrove habitats percolated up in a few of my favorite web watering holes. The BBC offered a nice overview in Coral, mangroves good for economy

Coral reefs and mangroves are worth protecting for economic reasons, contributing as much as $1m per sq km to tropical economies.
Another synopsis appears over on WorldChanging: The $1 Million per Square Kilometer Solution
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami affirmed -- in a terrible way -- the value of mangroves and coral reefs to save human lives. But our history shows over and over that some influential forces in the world hold life relatively cheap. UNEP's new report does the math: balancing the wealth mangroves and coral reefs generate against the income and resources lost when they're destroyed proves that saving them makes overwhelming economic sense.
The full report is found here (PDF).

1 comment:

Calvin Jones said...

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Calvin Jones, Scotland

--
Climate Change Action: The issues, the solutions.
http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com