Private Sector Roundtable on Emerging Markets and Approaches for Marine Ecosystem Services

Tracy Stanton on February 11, 2010 Comment

Is there an emerging alternative approach to coastal and marine management that takes into account the value of the ecosystem services provided by marine environments?

That was the topic at today's private sector roundtable discussion held at the Moore Foundation, part of the Katoomba Meeting XVI, on "Harnessing New Investment for the Protection of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services," and co-hosted by Forest Trends and T.C. Hoffmann & Associates, LLC.

For companies reliant on the marine ecosystems be it for raw materials or related to location of operations, they have begun the process to understand the value of those dependencies as well as impacts on ecosystem services. The small discussion groups
focused on three key questions: 1) What are the business needs; 2) What approaches to focus on first; and 3) How best to engage the private sector in the process.

For the Forest Trends MARES program, this Katoomba meeting was intended to be a beginning point from which to begin building a new blueprint for harnessing new investment in marine and coastal ecosystem services.