Forest Trends’ Coastal and Marine Initiative aims to protect marine ecosystem services by harnessing markets and private sector investment to complement conventional coastal and marine management methods.
Oceans provide many critical but undervalued ecosystem services that support not only coastal inhabitants but all life on the planet. However, coastal areas continue to be developed, degraded, and over-exploited, undermining the capacity of oceans and watersheds to support critical fisheries, protect people from storms, prevent erosion, provide places for tourism and recreation, and maintain supplies of clean water for people and nature.
Our approach
The Coastal and Marine Initiative highlights the links between healthy marine and coastal ecosystems, water quality, and human health. We work to create investment opportunities for maintaining the ecosystems that sustain us all. The Coastal and Marine Initiative uses analyses, assessments, pilot projects, and other tools to derive lessons learned from other similar Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives and to build capacity for marine ecosystem services protection, in order to:
- Develop a solid understanding of marine ecosystem services and their economic value;
- Define the best practices for the conservation of those services;
- Provide information about ecosystem services in order to raise awareness and generate political will needed to effectively and efficiently protect them; and
- Build a community of practice for marine PES and other innovative financing mechanisms.
For a brief overview of our Coastal and Marine Initiative (formerly MARES, Marine Ecosystem Services program), click here.