Katoomba XVI: Building a Blueprint to Harness New Investments for the Protection of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services

BACKGROUND

The oceans provide a great many critical but undervalued ecosystem services that are nearing thresholds for healthy functioning, putting coastal populations ever more at risk. Given the failure of many conventional management measures and the insufficient resources available for effective management, the time is ripe for the development of new market-based tools. This first-ever Marine Katoomba Meeting capitalizes on ever-expanding interest in finding innovative solutions to conserve our valuable marine ecosystem services.

OBJECTIVES

• Catalyze the building of a global community of practice to support payment for ecosystem services (PES) and other innovative financing mechanisms for marine and coastal conservation, as well as regional networks for information exchange and sharing of lessons learned;
• Create a strategy to reach consensus on a “blueprint for action” to guide future marine PES, offsets, and other market-based solutions to marine conservation problems;
• Lay the groundwork for designing and launching a network of demonstration PES projects in marine and coastal environments; and
• Present meeting outputs at future national and international oceans conferences, such as the Fifth Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands.
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TOPICS

• The current state of market-based mechanisms for marine and coastal conservation
• PES and other market-like mechanisms in an integrated ecosystem management context, including:
  • adding value to tourism with targeted investments in coral reef and mangrove protection
  • linking freshwater quality markets with coastal water quality
  • innovative market strategies in fisheries
  • sustainable offshore energy development
• The role of community and other institutions in providing innovative solutions for marine and coastal conservation
• Solving the open access issues in marine and coastal resource utilization
• Exploring various rights-based approaches to emerging marine market schemes
• Transboundary collaboration on environment, trade, and PES
• Extending terrestrial carbon markets to cover marine and coastal carbon pools
• Enabling conditions for marine markets through creating the right conditions for private sector investment
• Responsible investing, and marketing opportunities for industries supporting coastal and marine conservation