On October 9th, 2020, 1-2 PM UTC, we will have Carlo Fezzi, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Trento (Italy) and Senior Lecturer at the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute, University of Exeter (United Kingdom). He will discuss the economic valuation for spatial targeting of coastal ecosystems’ conservation in the face of climate change. The moderator will be Malik Lopes, President of the Instituto do Mar, Mindelo, Cabo Verde.

Preserving coastal ecosystems requires identifying priority areas for action. Economics can contribute to this process by developing methods to understand which locations provide the highest values for the society and which policy interventions are will deliver the highest benefits for the lowest cost. In this context, cultural services such as recreation deserve a prominent position, particularly in those areas with thriving tourism and leisure sectors. They are also crucial from a policy perspective, since their values can be at least partially captured via access fees or green taxes and, therefore, are extremely suitable for financing conservation and restoration programs in practice. This study shows how information on the number of visits to different outdoor recreation sites in a wide area can be used to develop a behavioral economic model providing welfare estimates that are directly applicable to inform a wide array of spatial planning questions related to coastal management. The empirical application is based on more than 150 different recreation sites located on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Carlo will present the changes in economic values from different scenarios including creation of marine protected areas and climate change impacts.

Speaker

Carlo Fezzi

Carlo Fezzi is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Trento (Italy) and Senior Lecturer at the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute, University of Exeter (United Kingdom). His research is at the intersection of environmental economics and applied statistics. He enjoys interdisciplinary research and regularly collaborates with environmental scientists, ecologists, hydrologists, geographers. His work includes developing spatial models for valuing multiple ecosystem services; estimating the impact of climate change on land use and agriculture and, more recently developing tools for integrated land and coastal management..

Moderator

Malik Lopes

Malik Duarte Lopes has a master’s degree in Social and Organizational Psychology and complementary training in “Blue Diplomacy: Enhancing Sustainable Economic Development of the Oceans Diplomatic Training Program for Small Island Developing States” by Clingendael (The Hague). He began his professional career as an english professor and translator, entering, afterwards, in public administration with the duty of Service Director of Human, Financial and Property, resources. He joined the Enapor in 2017 as a Human Resources Manager in Porto da Praia and Harbour Labour Manager in Porto Grande. Afterwards Malik Duarte Lopes embraced a new challenge as an advisor to the SE, the Minister of Maritime Economy for the Blue Economy area, and then assumed the position of Director General of Maritime Economy. He recently accepted the invitation to exercise the functions of President of the Instituto do Mar, Mindelo, Cabo Verde, where he intends to lift the Institute’s mission, which is the promotion and coordination of applied marine research and technological development in the fields of sea and its resources..

Acknowledgements

This session is co-organized with GEO BON Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), IOC Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) Bio-Eco Panel, IOC/IODE Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), IOC/IODE Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS), and OceanObs Research Coordination Network (OceanObs RCN).

We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the next months. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting afternoons, or mornings or evenings, depending on where you are…

If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.