Abstract
This year’s Kyoto prize signals the long overdue recognition of the fundamental interdependence of economic and ecologic systems for the protection and maintenance of ecosystem services and human well-being. Levin (2006) and Vincent (2007) point to several of the more important ways that interdisciplinary approaches will be essential to the better quantification and understanding of the economic contributions of ecosystem services, but they differ fundamentally in their relative faith in the evolution of new social norms versus economic incentives backed up by sanctions to achieve the necessary cooperation for environmental protection. In the case of marine fisheries, social norms have proven highly effective on small spatial scales but have not taken root in the face of increasingly global markets and free trade.
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Acknowledgments
Richard Carson, Dale Squires, and Jeff Vincent have patiently humored my economic naïveté during the past three summers of our joint course in marine biodiversity and conservation and taught me the little bit of economics I know. Nancy Knowlton and Enric Sala first pointed out to me how much of conservation biology refines the obituary for nature instead of devising new ideas for a more salutary future.
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Jackson, J.B.C. Economic incentives, social norms, and the crisis of fisheries. Ecol Res 22, 16–18 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-006-0075-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-006-0075-z