Marine Biodiversity Conservation within the Framework of Impure Public Goods

Globalization and the permanent revolution of information technologies transform the environmental security of marine ecosystems into the complicate network of relationships, rights, services, and goods. The provision of marine biodiversity conservation lies within the problem of efficient supply of impure environmental public goods. It is the one of the most vulnerable though the determinative issue of global ecological balance and undersupplied at the same time. Local environmental services are often seen to be unable to make impure public goods work for  multiple countries or international benefits in general. The efficient supply of impure public goods of sea areas require searching for the balance of regulation and conservation incentives that can be achieved by means of national and international cooperation activities.

Treatment of marine biodiversity conservation as impure public goods suggests its economic modeling in the scale broader than national using both regulative and stimulative mechanisms. Impure public goods are thought to be “either partially excludable or partially rival” (Arriagada and Perrings 798). Partial excludability simplifies local management of goods’ supply. However, it complicates the process of coordination and cooperation of efforts on the international scale within the diversity of providers. Marine biodiversity conservation is the issue that refers to global interests though also being mainly supplied by the local providers. Impure, but international character of the issue suggests joined efforts to make goods function for economic benefits of all the countries (Arriagada and Perrings 5). All mentioned backgrounds predispose the need to pay attention to the environmental externalities manifested in financial benefits and social costs of public goods in and outside of the area of supply.

The diversity of providers in the service of impure public goods leads to the difficulties in the provision of appropriate amount for the global market. At the same time, partial non-excluditive character of goods enables competitive market in the field of supply. The processes are typical for the provision of marine conservation biodiversity. According to Arriagada and Perrings, local private efforts in conservation are not enough to establish provision higher or equal to “the socially optimal level” (801). Still, only such a level means the efficiency of utilization. Accordingly,  in order to receive the optimal degree of social benefit, the mechanism of supply should include the incremental cost of provision to the specific country (Arriagada and Perrings 801). In turn, it is linked to the sum of all the benefits from all the diversity of providers. As a result, specific country taking part in the supply of international impure goods must respond to the global demand. The solution of the problem considers search for the effective technology of general supply in the form of cooperation.

Hence, the peculiarities of marine biodiversity conservation as impure public goods require the combination of modern technologies of supply. On the way, the technology of public goods provision should rely on the system of joint efforts and benefits of countries involved in the process. In the light of the problem, the technology of best shot, maintained by the most effective provider appears to be insufficient. Still, the habitat conservation is rather influenced by the technology of the weakest link and additive supply. That means that the efforts of the poorest countries in the conservation of local sea wildlife are further reflected on the ecological status of international marine territories (Arriagada and Perrings 801). Marine resources seem to be the environmental goods of global reach with all the types of benefits of sustainable development. Along with traditional summative regulating services and limitation of a provision, they require additional market instruments (Arriagada and Perrings 798).

Consequently, in response to the nature of impure environmental goods, there exist two possible ways of economic incentives directed to the international supply. They mostly concern regulations of utilization of resources and habitat and marketing instruments to encourage conservation activities. The implementation of economic incentives is the most apparent in developing countries, while equaling the situation in the international supply (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 10). The effective  marine biodiversity conservation suggests a combination of harvesting and protection measures within the amount that provides the optimal social benefit (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 10). Only the environmental practices of conservation show that all the economic instruments should be additional to the monitoring services of governmental institutions.

The regulatory actions turn out to be controversial economic incentives on the way to encourage consumers to invest in the future conservation. As the studies show, economic incentives in the form of limiting the exploitation of wildlife, in the long run are insufficient (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 2). In particular, they do not work in marine species’ industry where consumers and providers are not homogenous. Still, they can be the only tool in economic overexploitation. The situation manifests in the economic decisions in the field of environmental products that are not based on marginal social costs (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 6).

The second group of economic instruments refers to market-based incentives in the form of direct investment or “payments for the beneficiaries of supply” (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 2). One of the most common options involves the grants of Global Environment Facility to the local providers to cover the incremental cost of supply for global needs (Arriagada and Perrings 802). It works efficiently in the additive technology and the weakest link’s case. Other similar instruments are generated by the Payments for Ecosystem Services. They are the most efficient in the case of dominance of private providers of the goods, thus making more space for equal public access.

Still within the modest role of economic incentives in regulating harvesting much bigger block of tools can be applied to the habitat and biodiversity conservation. The measures are directed toward economic instruments like property rights sponsored through transfers and subsidies from outside as well as tax. Application of property rights in physical and legal space and their differentiation is considered to be the positive economic incentives leading to sustainable management (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 5). Some additional measures could be applied to control the interaction of the owner within the habitat being under conservation and exploitation. In this case, environmental problems are related first of all to institutional failures where the property rights don’t cover the appropriate use of resources leading to harm. In addition, the shifts between common and state regimes are most dangerous while leading to zero responsibility (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 6). Besides, while measuring the costs  and benefits of economic instruments, providers sometimes miss the spillover effects related to nonuse values. They complicate the assessment and of public and private goods (Bulte, van Kooten, and Swanson 2). The external effect of the misunderstanding can result in losing some species as well as the decrease of economic value of the habitat.

In the final run, in the era of globalization, effective and beneficial provision of impure environmental goods like marine biodiversity conservation require the coordinated system of international and local efforts and their interdependence. It appears that the structure will function for the benefits of humans and nature when taking into account consumers’ surplus from goods’ provision together with environmental responsibility. Economic incentives, though being crucial for improvement of the supply and quality of such goods in developing countries cannot exclude the monitoring and control activities of local and international scale.

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