NOAA 95-R418
CONTACT: Isobel C. Sheifer FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7/17-20/95 -- Hyatt Regency Hotel, Tampa 7/18/95
after -- NOAA Coastal Ocean Office
301-713-3338
An innovative "do-it-yourself" handbook designed to train coastal managers nationwide in the developing economic discipline of natural resource valuation will be released on July 19 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Ocean Program.
Entitled Economic Valuation of Natural Resources: A Handbook for Coastal Resource Policymakers, the newly published book will be released for the first time at the CZ '95 Conference in Tampa, Fla., because of its applicability to coastal zone management.
"The NOAA Coastal Ocean Program has rendered a significant service to the management community in developing this handbook," said Douglas Lipton, coordinator of the Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program. "The easy-to-use teaching format and interesting case applications will help coastal decision makers better understand what value people place on environmental resources, and how to take this into account in managing for sustainability."
The handbook grew out of a need clearly expressed by coastal managers surveyed by NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program (COP). Managers who must make critical decisions regarding the use of coastal environmental resources are increasingly called upon to put a dollar value on these resources, even though such resources have traditionally not been considered in this way, and to develop cost-benefit analyses and economic impact analyses.
To bridge the gap between what the economists have developed to value natural resources and what coastal managers need to use in their day-to-day activities, the COP, with the NOAA Economics Group, began in 1992 to develop a curriculum and training workshop to teach these new techniques. A pilot workshop in Durham, N.H., proved so successful that COP workshop training has been held nationwide over the past two years. Two such workshops are now planned in September for the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.
The handbook parallels the training given at these seminars. It has two distinct sections -- one contains easy-to-read and well-illustrated materials on the concepts, techniques, and uses of economic valuation; the other consists of eight regional case studies.
The case studies deal with such issues as the use of economic valuation in developing the management plan for the sustainable use of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and in the artificial reef program in Lake Erie, Ohio. Despite the specific regional context of each, the insight and skill used in studying them can be transferred to issues in all regions.
COP will widely distribute the handbook, and welcomes its use by all federal, state, regional, local, university, information, public and private research, environmental, business and industry, and other organizations interested in the management and use of natural resources.