Economic Valuation of Sarasota Bay

Title: Economic Valuation of Sarasota Bay

Discussion Group Leaders: Paul Hindsley and Zach Cole

Economics can find mutual divide.

• Can bridge divide between social and ecological systems. -Provisioning ecosystems services. Nature offers us several services; such as, food, fresh water, fuel wood, genetic resources. We are tied to nature because of these services.

• From an economic perspective we can allocate resources based on their relative value. One way to tell something’s value is to see it’s worth on the market; such as, the cost of a grouper sandwich. But how do you value things that aren’t on the market. By surveying people’s opinions on the resource and how the resource affects us we can put a value to it.

• Things have a use value and a non-use value. The use value can be divided into a non-consumptive (recreation) and consumptive (food) worth. A non-use value would be such things as conservation for future generations.

Big Questions:

• How do we manage environmental resources in the Sarasota Bay Estuary?

• How do we find a balance between different wants?

• Is this system based on anthropocentric value, what people value, not what people should value?

• Can you find the value of an acre of seagrass? Value is difficult to assess if human behavior isn’t linked to it.

• How do you know what things need to have their value assessed. For example, after an oil spill we attempt to assess the value of things affected by the spill; however, some of these things may not have been valued pre-spill.

• Is value biased? A person with a boat dock won’t value a boat ramp as much as someone without one.

• When asking someone how much they value a resource how do you minimize bias? People are more likely to value the beach during summer than winter.

• How do you put a dollar amounts on sentimentality? Example, a man wants to cut a tree down to make furniture while another man wants to keep it around so his children’s children can see it. How do you put value to this?

• How do you deal with congestion devaluing something? If a river is declared scenic then everyone flocks to it this reduces the value because of congestion; however, if the river is scenic and not being used it isn’t a valuable recreation.

Areas of Agreement

• Valuing system will have unavoidable flaws in attempting to value things that have spiritual value.

• Is anthropocentric, based on how humans value things.