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Resource exploitation

It is unfortunate, however, that the physical use of these systems for their resources, through extractive and non-extractive means has had damaging impacts on coral ecosystems. Locals in Indonesia use destructive methods, such as dynamite fishing, which sometimes leave permanent craters in the coral beds. To catch live fish for export and trade, cyanide is often sprayed over the corals to stun them, and this ends up killing and even bleaching the corals (Burke et al 2011(2)). Overfishing and capturing of live fish for export also depletes the coral systems of life, which makes them unappealing for tourists and harms local tourist industries. These can also lead to conflicts between fisheries and tourism operators over the governance and use of reef systems (Lal 2005). Reefs are also further degraded by the lime production industry, which often not only uses beach sand but also live branching corals for lime production. This has been seen in a community known as Andra within Papua New Guinea, where 90% of individuals are involved in harvesting of branching corals for lime production to be used with chewing of betel nut (Cinner et al. 2005). This removal of coral has resulted in significant changes in coral cover: 10% less cover than neighbouring reefs (Cinner et al. 2005). Beyond the physical degradation of resources, there are also the economic impacts which include market, policy and livelihood failures that pose a serious threat to coral reefs.

Economic failures in coral conservation

Market Failures

When looking at the economics of coral systems, one of the major issues that arises that pose a problem to conservation is market failure. This occurs due to the use of goods that are considered the ‘commons’...

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...and lead to mismanagement due to the lack of resources that are in place and the neglect of the needs of all the stakeholders involved. Will conservation become more effective by taking into account the economic implications of resource mismanagement and presenting this information in ways that are understandable to policy makers? Economic valuations allow for the full costs and benefits of both preservation and continued use to be seen through monetary values which, even if rough estimates, have a greater impact on policy makers than simply conservation and scientific arguments. With that said much of the research into this area is not new, in fact the concept has been around since the 1980’s but has yet to be implemented on a wider scale. Up-to-date research into the reasons why such potentially effective measures have yet to be incorporated, still need to be done.