Ecosystem-based management and the wealth of ecosystems

Area of Science:

• Ecological economics
• Marine ecosystem management
• Natural capital accounting

Background:

• Sustainable ecosystem management faces challenges in valuing complex ecological interactions.
• Inclusive wealth theory and ecosystem-based management (EBM) offer frameworks for assessing ecosystem health and sustainability.
• Existing methods often overlook the interconnectedness of species within an ecosystem.

Purpose of the Study:

• To generalize natural capital theory for valuing interacting species within ecosystems.
• To develop shadow prices for ecosystem components to improve wealth-based sustainability measures.
• To assess the utility of ecosystem wealth changes as an index for EBM.

Main Methods:

• Merging inclusive wealth theory with ecosystem-based management (EBM).
• Generalizing natural capital theory to calculate realized shadow prices for multiple interacting species.
• Applying the framework to the Baltic Sea ecosystem, focusing on cod, herring, and sprat.
• Modeling ecosystem wealth under different management scenarios (multispecies vs. single-species).

Main Results:

• Ecosystems are conceptualized as portfolios of interacting assets, where species' shadow prices reflect their ecological roles and trophic interactions.
• Prey fish exhibit higher shadow prices than market value suggests, while predatory fish show lower shadow prices, due to interdependencies.
• Projected ecosystem wealth in the Baltic Sea increases under EBM-inspired multispecies management, contrasting with declining wealth under single-species management.

Conclusions:

• The generalized natural capital approach effectively incorporates ecological interactions into wealth assessments.
• Changes in ecosystem wealth serve as a valuable indicator for ecosystem-based management.
• Multispecies management strategies are projected to be more effective in sustaining and increasing Baltic Sea ecosystem wealth.