Report on estimating/quantifying economic benefits of environmental and social services provided by healthy ecosystems in the GCLME/economic damage from using these services [GCLME]
The project "Combating Living Resources Depletion and Coastal Area Degradation in the Guinea Current LME through Ecosystem-based Regional Actions" has a primary focus on the priority problems and issues identified by the 16 GCLME countries that have led to unsustainable fisheries and use of other marine resources, as well as the degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems by human activities. To combat the resulting environmental and social problems, it is considered crucial to integrate environmental concerns into policies and decision making more sustainably. To achieve this, the economic instrument of the monetary evaluation of ecosystem services is considered suitable. In the context of the project: "Combating Living Resources Depletion and Coastal Area Degradation in the Guinea Current LME through Ecosystem-based Regional Actions", such an evaluation has been performed by an international expert on ecosystem service valuation. The results are delivered in three separate reports, which were combined into a single document for better access and readability. The reports are as follows: 1. Report on the methodology used, generally conferred to as the “Methodology Report”. 2. Report on quantifying the economic benefits of ecosystem services in the GCLME, generally conferred to as the “Valuation Report”. 3. Report on generic economic instruments for the management of critical resources in the GCLME, generally referred to as the “Economic Instruments Report”. The reports follow in the same order.