Ecosystem Service Tradeoff Analysis: Quantifying the Cost of a Legal Regime

Abstract

As decision makers in the United States transition toward more holistic management of living and nonliving marine resources, they must confront the inevitable tradeoffs that flow from choosing one suite of ecological and economic benefits over another. The U.S. National Ocean Policy appreciates this reality, and provides for a Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) approach to managing marine resources in U.S. waters. But while CMSP inherently recognizes the tradeoffs that inhere in ecosystem-based natural resource management, the preferred mechanism by which those tradeoffs will be evaluated remains unclear. This article focuses on one emerging tool that can enable prospective evaluation of the tradeoffs inherent in natural resource decision-making processes like CMSP: ecosystem service tradeoff analysis. We demonstrate the potential of this tool through an evaluation of the ecological and economic tradeoffs flowing from the institution of Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) in the southern California red sea urchin fishery. While ecosystem service tradeoff analysis does not reveal to policy makers the “best” solution to resource allocation decisions--that determination is a societal value judgment--it can illuminate the potential costs and benefits of an extant or proposed law, regulation, or policy in a clear, transparent way. This, in turn, enables more effective communication of decision-making rationales to the public and can provide a catalyst for policy overhaul. In sum, ecosystem service tradeoff analysis represents one of the most powerful tools available to facilitate the transition to CMSP and comprehensive, ecosystem-based natural resource management.