Biodiversité

Dans un plan dévoilé ce mardi, la Commission européenne détaille ses ambitions pour la pêche : plus d'aires marines protégées, chalutage interdit dans celles-ci, meilleure exploitation des stocks de poissons et bateaux moins énergivores.

Marine mammals play a crucial role in marine ecosystem function and climate change resilience by sequestering carbon through the consumption of energy rich plankton and fish. They provide valuable ecosystem services such as ecotourism. Conserving marine mammals provides significant economic, social and cultural benefits to coastal communities.

La biodiversité marine appartient à l’humanité entière, pense-t-on spontanément. Or, des chercheurs des universités de Stockholm, en Suède, et de la Colombie-Britannique ont découvert que près de 13 000 séquences génétiques issues de centaines d’espèces marines ont été brevetées par des entreprises provenant de 10 pays seulement, dont l’Allemagne (49 % des brevets), les États-Unis (13 %) et le Japon (12 %).

The objective of this study is to evaluate the concrete costs and benefits of three types of protected areas within the marine environment: (i) Fish Stock Recovery Areas (FSRAs), (ii) Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and (iii) areas designated as Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).

There is evidence that FSRAs, MPAs and OECMs provide economic benefits to fisheries and aquaculture sectors in Europe.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a global environmental organization, lists approximately 1,200 marine species worldwide that are considered vulnerable, threatened, or at-risk of extinction. Many are provided legal protection through national laws requiring research and management measures aimed at recovering and maintaining the species at a sustainable population level. Integral to the policy decision process involving the management and recovery of marine species is the consideration of trade-offs between the economic and ecological costs and benefits of protection. This suggests that economics, at its core the study of trade-offs, has a significant role. In the U.S. a somewhat traditional use of economics in protected species research and management has involved cost minimization or cost-effectiveness analyses to help select or prioritize conservation actions.

15/01/2016 L’étude fournit un recensement exhaustif des opérateurs de whale-watching dits « commerciaux » exerçant au sein d'Agoa, un « état zéro » de l’activité sous la forme d’indicateurs socio-économiques [...]...