The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent (“2050 Strategy”), endorsed by the Pacific Leaders in 2022, highlights identifying and valuing the Pacific subregion’s ecosystem goods and services as one of the key aspects for sustainable management of resources. The blue economy concept will also be a key component of the Pacific Roadmap for Economic Development (PRED), which is being developed in support of and alignment with the 2050 Strategy and its implementation plan.
Pacific SIDS see the urgency to understand the value of their natural resources and ecosystem, which are eroding due to climate change and unsustainable use of resources, a comprehensive valuation of ecosystem will remain an ambitious and long-term goal in many of the Pacific SIDS.
The project “Regional Guidelines for the valuation of ecosystem goods and services in the Pacific” aims to support the capacity building of the Pacific member states to strengthen the understanding and effective use of ecosystem valuation for policy making.
The mapping study of ecosystem valuation found limited examples of ecosystem valuation work used in the policy decision-making in the Pacific, while ecosystem valuation offers some tools to measure values including non-market value of ecosystems.