Conference Agenda

Traditional sectoral income measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Net National Product (NNP) typically omit the depreciation of natural capital, which may distort signals of sectoral performance and lead to misguided policy decisions, particularly in resource-dependent economies. In response, the literature has proposed wealth as a more appropriate indicator for assessing sustainability over time. This study corrects GDP and NNP for the Peruvian marine extractive fishery by incorporating natural capital depreciation and estimating sectoral wealth. This issue is especially relevant for Peru, which ranked third worldwide in marine species landings in 2022 and whose fishing sector represents the fourth-largest source of foreign exchange after mining, agriculture, and hydrocarbons. Using data for the period 1995–2022, the results show that traditional and green income measures, sectoral wealth, and per capita wealth exhibit upward trends. Importantly, this evolution is accompanied by a broadly stable pattern of anchoveta biomass, the dominant species in national landings. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the potential sustainability of the extractive fishery sector over the study period. This outcome appears to be associated with precautionary management practices, regulatory improvements—particularly the implementation of individual transferable quotas—and gains in economic efficiency. Overall, the Peruvian case provides evidence that, under specific institutional and management conditions, a large-scale marine fishery can combine income growth, wealth accumulation, and biomass maintenance.

This research examines the results of the pilot application of the Ecosystem Accounting methodology under the United Nations System of Environmental and Economic Accounting on artisanal fisheries in Galapagos, Ecuador (2014–2018). It explores the interconnectedness and feedback among ecosystem, economic, and social dimensions. To evaluate these dimensions, the study develops extent and condition accounts for ecosystems, elaborates a hybrid supply-use table with physical and monetary indicators to assess economic activities, and incorporates employment data from the artisanal fishing sector to highlight social effects. The research also reports challenges and limitations encountered when applying ecosystem accounting methods.

Developing alternative economic sectors is widely promoted as a strategy to reduce pressure on natural resources while improving livelihoods, yet opportunities to rigorously evaluate whether diversification reduces harvesting pressure are rare. We provide such an evaluation using linked data on tourism, artisanal fisheries, prices, and fisher occupations from the Galapagos Islands. We develop a resource-economic model in which both resource prices and the opportunity cost of harvesting depend on the development of a non-resource sector, namely tourism. The model predicts that harvesting declines only when wages in the alternative sector rise more rapidly than resource profitability; otherwise aggregate effort is maintained and reallocated across resources toward those with higher marginal profitability. Calibrating the model using observed wage and price responses indicates that diversification should primarily induce within-sector reallocation rather than exit from harvesting. We test these predictions using the collapse of tourism during the Covid-19 lockdown as a negative demand shock. Tourism substantially raises fishers’ revenue by increasing local prices, yet the decline in tourism did not reduce aggregate landings. Instead, effort shifted toward more profitable fisheries, moving extraction away from endemic and biologically vulnerable species toward healthier stocks. Dual-sector fishers expanded effort while single-sector fishers reduced it. Diversification toward a non-resource sector can thus generate income gains while inducing environmental losses by reshaping harvesting incentives rather than reducing extraction.

Entrance fee policies are key for regulating tourism and financing conservation, yet public resistance often hinders their implementation. We conceptualize and empirically test a mechanism through which allocating revenues to publicly preferred uses shifts support for otherwise contested policies. Exploiting a natural experiment, the first entrance fee increase in the Galapagos National Park in 25 years, we examine this mechanism across two stakeholder groups (residents and tourists) using two studies: a short-term comparison before and shortly after implementation, and a long-term follow-up nine months post-implementation. Tourists remained broadly supportive of the fee increase and less sensitive to revenue allocation over the three periods. In contrast, resident opposition persisted, but reallocating revenues became increasingly effective at improving acceptability in the longer term. These findings show that incorporating stakeholder preferences into policy design can enhance support for highly contested policies, offering insights for effective implementation and sustainable governance in other biodiversity-rich destinations.