Does Economic Development Lead to Mangrove Loss? A Cross‐Country Analysis

Abstract

Mangroves line one quarter of the world's tropical coastlines, and approximately 117 countries and territories have mangrove resources within their borders. Although over recent years mangrove deforestation has occurred at a phenomenal rate worldwide, there have been few economic studies of the underlying causes. The article attempts such an analysis and particularly examines the role of economic development, with specific reference to those activities that may result in mangrove deforestation, in determining the area of mangrove left within a country. The article develops a model of economic activity and mangrove conversion. From this model, a relationship is established between remaining mangrove area, economic activity, and other important causative factors. The mangrove area relationship is estimated empirically for a cross-section of 89 countries. Results show that shrimp aquaculture and agriculture are significantly associated with mangrove loss across all countries, whereas the higher the level of GDP per capita the more mangrove area remains. The number of protected areas, length of coastline and political stability were also important in determining the remaining mangrove area of a country. (JEL O13, Q22, Q23, Q24)

Effects of different management regimes on mangrove ecosystem services in Java, Indonesia

“…Urban expansion, aquaculture farms, oilpalm plantations and the economic value of mangrove timber itself have caused an estimated decline of about 1.2 million hectares of mangroves since the 1980's (FAO 2007, Spalding et al 2010. Many factors are behind mangrove degradation and conversion, but the major cause is aquaculture expansion, which are mainly brackish water fish and shrimp farms (Primavera 1995, Barbier andCox 2003). In the whole of Asia, aquaculture has been found to contribute to 58% of mangrove loss, with 41% the result of shrimp farming alone (Walters et al 2008).…”

Drivers causing decline of mangrove in West-Central Africa: a review

“…This is because mangroves are marginalized in national and regional political agendas (Kjerfve et al 1997;Dodman et al 2006;UNEP-WCMC 2007). This marginalization is due to the poor weighting of this ecosystem's services, because of the inability to establish a market value to these services (Barbier et al 1997;Barbier and Cox 2003). This lack of information to effectively value mangroves is the result of inadequate research interest and limited government concern; indicated by inadequate regulations and poor policy enforcement.…”

“…This circumstance, coupled with the poor weighing of mangrove services creates prospects for uncontrolled urbanization, which is a leading cause of mangrove forest change (Hamilton and Snedaker 1984;Barbier and Cox 2003). Petroleum is extremely dangerous to the ecology of mangroves because it causes acute chronic and immediate effects with a resident time of up to 10 years.…”

Interaction effects between economic development and forest cover determine deforestation rates

“…The underlying assumption in the majority of these analyses is that deforestation rates are related to per-capita income in an inverted U shape-the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC; after Kuznets, 1955; see review by Dinda, 2004). The EKC theory states that in the initial stages of economic development, a nation draws heavily on environmental capital like forests to spur economic growth (Walker and Nautiyal, 1982;Barbier, 2004Barbier, , 2005Naidoo, 2004) capital becomes less central to the national economy (Koop and Tole, 2001;Barbier and Cox, 2003), and as people become more wealthy, pressure builds to improve and conserve environmental quality (Koop and Tole, 2001;Meyer et al, 2003). This eventually leads to reductions in the rate of environmental degradation as income increases further (Bhattarai and Hammig, 2001;Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2002;Dinda, 2004).…”