Economic Analysis for Ecosystem-Based Management: Applications to Marine and Coastal Environments

摘要

If Benjamin Franklin was correct in his assertion that 'Diligence is the mother of good luck', then the authors have created a book that is destined to be a must-read for those who will be involved in the public discussions that are certain to follow the April 2010 sinking of Deepwater Horizon and the ensuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Relying on their combined decades of academic and public policy experience, Holland et al. intelligently summarize the voluminous literature on economic valuation, simultaneously creating an argument for why economics is critical to understanding and addressing the resource-use conflicts that arise when attempting to manage both small- and large-scale ecosystems. While I hesitate to characterize the Gulf oil spill as good luck for the authors, I can't help but wonder if the current environmental contamination could have been avoided with a serious ecosystem-wide application of the approaches discussed in this book.