Challenges in using valuation in ecosystem-based management in a marine context: the case of UK Marine Protected Area designation - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 256

and the assessment of the non-use values arising from the Marine and Coastal Access Act
(reported in McVittie and Moran, 2010 ) uses both approaches.
7.4.2.2 Marine versus terrestrial ecosystem valuation
Although there is a long history of applying stated preference techniques in the terrestrial
domain, there are very few applications for marine (i.e. open oceans) ecosystems per se,
although there are many studies valuing coastal ecosystems. De Groot et al . ( 2012 ) report
on the TEEB database on value estimates. Of the 665 value data points, only 14 are for
'open oceans'; there are however 94 for 'coral reefs', 28 for 'coastal systems' and 139 for
'coastal wetlands'.
This is important if valuation is to be carried out without the funding or availability
of a location and a context-specific primary valuation study. This scenario is commonplace
and the use of what is termed 'benefits transfer' is now routine, i.e. using value estimates
from one or more study sites to transfer to one or more policy sites. There are many sub-
stantive issues associated with benefits transfer (see TEEB, 2010 for a review) and these
issues are additional to those that pertain to methodologies for primary valuation, as the
benefits transfer relies on primary studies as an input. Values derived in primary studies are
context-specific in terms of the ecological characteristics of the study site and the socio-
cultural and demographic features of the sample population. All else being equal, having
more primary studies in valuation databases to choose from should lead to more defensible
value estimates using benefits transfer. So the paucity of data points for open oceans is sig-
nificant .