The US government has launched a nationwide roadmap for improving marine ecosystems data that suggests industry actors put a price on ocean biodiversity, spurred in-part by emerging nature markets.
The National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy, published on Monday, aims to improve understanding of ocean life while conserving its ecosystem services, although funding has yet to be decided.
“The ability to monitor ocean species and habitats has expanded dramatically over the past decade … yet large fractions of the US ocean remain almost unknown. The strategy reflects the urgent need to leverage these advances,” the paper said.
Part of the reason a strategy is needed is to help the government effectively steward the oceans in a time of nascent marine biodiversity markets, the paper said.
There are “rapidly growing markets and regulatory environments related to biodiversity, ocean carbon, and other marine resources, e.g., seabed minerals”.
Creating a way of economically valuing ocean biodiversity could boost stewardship by better informing the actions of the government, it said.
“Economic valuation … combined with emerging markets for biodiversity, would support measures to require market players to consider the economic costs of degrading biodiversity in decision making, and help put more accurate prices on activities that harm biodiversity, making the many hidden costs of nature degradation explicit in policy and markets.”
The US government released a plan for placing monetary values on the nation’s natural assets in Jan. 2023, but the initiative has not progressed much since then.
In February this year it released guidelines, on ecosystem services accounting, encouraging public agencies to put a dollar value on ecosystem services.
THREE GOALS
The National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy set out three overarching goals in its bid to help improve marine knowledge gathering, while helping the nation meet its commitment to protecting at least 30% of US waters by 2030:
- Drive delivery of ocean biodiversity knowledge at the national scale
- Strengthen tools and institutions to deliver ocean biodiversity knowledge
- Protect, conserve, and sustainably use ocean biodiversity
Objectives to achieve these goals include establishing a robust information pipeline to support marine indicators with expanded observing systems, and incentivising diverse partnerships.
IMPLEMENTATION
The strategy acknowledged that funding and strategic allocation of existing resources will be critical to its successful implementation.
The government’s Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology IWG-Biodiversity will begin developing an implementation plan with actions, timelines, and metrics.
“Implementing the strategy will deliver knowledge for monitoring, modelling, forecasting, and assessments that support food security, public health, and cultural values, and that more effectively protect, conserve, and restore nature,” the paper said.
The ocean contributes nearly $400 billion to the US economy every year and provides 2.4 million jobs, including fishing, shipping, tourism, and energy. Total ocean territory under US management covers an area larger than all 50 states combined.
Emmett Duffy, co-chair of the strategy’s writing team and chief scientist of MarineGEO, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, said: “This strategy is our best chance yet to turn the tide. We need to implement it to reach a future where people and the rest of nature thrive together.”
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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