An insight into the economic value of reef environments through the literature: the case of the Seaflower Biophere Reserve

Abstract

The Seaflower Biosphere Reserve (SBR) is one of the few places in Colombia with a set of available studies on the economic value of its reef environments. This paper seeks to review the policy applications of these studies, and evaluate the use of benefit transfer (BT) methods to predict value estimates for sites in the SBR where no valuations have been performed. First, the paper provides an analysis and categorization of policy uses of existing results. A set of economic valuation studies were identified as somewhat influential in policy applications, because they provided financial sustainability tools for marine protected areas. A case study was selected from the pool of influential studies in order to assess the viability of BT. Second, the viability of using BT for determining recreational values of coral reefs within the SBR was assessed by: i) implementing a demand function transfer between the Johnny Cay Regional Park and the Old Providence and McBean Lagoon National Park; and ii) by estimating a meta-analytic function transfer based on world-wide meta-data on the recreational value of coral reefs. Results suggested a potential for the use of BT to predict recreational values for coral reefs in the SBR. In particular, the metaanalytic results indicated low to moderate transfer errors for the SBR, suggesting the viability of this approach.