RESUMO
The Usumacinta floodplain is an exceptional area for biodiversity with important ecosystem services for local people. The main objective of this paper was to estimate reference values and define local perceptions of ecosystem services provided by wetlands and overlapping them with spatially explicit socioeconomic and biodiversity indicators. We used the Usumacinta floodplain as an example of a territory where high dependence of rural people on ecosystem services is confronted with development projects that threat the flow of ecosystem services, thus affecting rural people well-being. With a combination of data from remote sensing, global databases of ecosystem service values, local perception of ecosystem services and socioeconomic and biodiversity richness indicators in a spatially explicit framework, we develop a policy-oriented approach for rapid assessment to manage wetlands and maintain people's livelihoods. Regulating and provisioning services are identified as the most relevant ecosystem services in terms of their monetary value and local perceived importance. In a spatially explicit manner, this approach highlights the most valuable wetlands and identifies rural societies that are highly dependent on ecosystem services. Our approach can be replicated elsewhere and could provide valuable information for policymakers to design policies that can contribute to conserve wetland ecosystems where under threat of development.
RESUMO
Because conventional markets value only certain goods or services in the ocean (e.g. fish), other services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems that are not priced, paid for, or stewarded tend to become degraded. In fact, the very capacity of an ecosystem to produce a valued good or service is often reduced because conventional markets value only certain goods and services, rather than the productive capacity. Coastal socio-ecosystems are particularly susceptible to these market failures due to the lack of clear property rights, strong dependence on resource extraction, and other factors. Conservation strategies aimed at protecting unvalued coastal ecosystem services through regulation or spatial management (e.g. Marine Protected Areas) can be effective but often result in lost revenue and adverse social impacts, which, in turn, create conflict and opposition. Here, we describe 'ecomarkets' - markets and financial tools - that could, under the right conditions, generate value for broad portfolios of coastal ecosystem services while maintaining ecosystem structure and function by addressing the unique problems of the coastal zone, including the lack of clear management and exclusion rights. Just as coastal tenure and catch-share systems generate meaningful conservation and economic outcomes, it is possible to imagine other market mechanisms that do the same with respect to a variety of other coastal ecosystem goods and services. Rather than solely relying on extracting goods, these approaches could allow communities to diversify ecosystem uses and focus on long-term stewardship and conservation, while meeting development, food security, and human welfare goals. The creation of ecomarkets will be difficult in many cases, because rights and responsibilities must be devolved, new social contracts will be required, accountability systems must be created and enforced, and long-term patterns of behaviour must change. We argue that efforts to overcome these obstacles are justified, because these deep changes will strongly complement policies and tools such as Marine Protected Areas, coastal spatial management, and regulation, thereby helping to bring coastal conservation to scale.