Establishing a voluntary market-based scheme that allows countries to trade ocean conservation credits could reduce the costs of marine protection by up to 98%, incentivising governments to achieve their biodiversity targets, a paper has said.

Researchers at California’s UC Santa Barbara devised a crediting system whereby nations could trade their conservation obligations with other countries. According to the results, published in the Science journal, estimated savings range from 37-98%.

“This project started just over four years ago. It seemed like most nations were genuinely committed to marine conservation, but that the costs of conserving were preventing some from engaging in it at all,” said Juan Carlos Villasenor-Derbez, who co-authored the study.

“At the same time, a lot of research had already shown that if you could get nations to cooperate around conservation, you could substantially reduce the costs of conserving.”

Researchers analysed the estimated cost reduction under five different policies that allow for trading credits within hemispheres, biogeographic realms, provinces, ecoregions, or globally.

Although savings were highest in a global market, the other four policies also contributed to reducing conservation costs while avoiding that marine protection efforts focus on a single habitat type, overlooking others.

Under the scheme laid out by the authors, countries could exchange credits only with nations within predefined areas, dubbed trade bubbles, to ensure protection activities are equitably spread across different habitats.

“When nations facing large costs are allowed to trade, they can ask themselves ‘should I conserve in my waters at this high cost, or can I find someone in my bubble that has habitat just as good as mine but at a lower price?’” Villasenor-Derbez said.

“[The study] highlighted how inefficient it is to require uniform conservation obligations from each nation. After all, national boundaries don’t really overlap or line-up with the distribution patterns of marine biodiversity.”

INCENTIVISING CONSERVATION EFFORTS

Furthermore, since high-value fisheries often coincide with critical marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and kelp forests, some countries are restrained from taking action on sea protection, the study said.

“Without an innovative policy solution, the cost of conservation for many nations could stall progress toward 30×30,” said Villasenor-Derbez.

Lower costs would likely incentivise conservation efforts, the researchers said, pointing out that establishing an international crediting scheme could hasten the achievement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework target of protecting at least 30% of seas by 2030.

According to the UN World Database on Protected Areas, just over 8% of the ocean is currently covered by marine protected areas (MPAs).

MPAs are considered to play a pivotal role in reaching the 30×30 target, though poor management and lack of funding have often hampered conservation efforts within these areas.

Recently, some early initiatives have emerged to enable governments to generate marine biodiversity credits from protected areas and mobilise financing towards ocean protection.

However, voluntary crediting frameworks across marine ecosystems have largely failed to expand so far, mainly due to measurement and jurisdictional issues.

By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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