Publication: Safeguarding Marine Ecosystems and Society: The Role of Insurance in Protecting Nature and Supporting Sustainable Tourism
Loading...
Date
2025-02-06
ISSN
Published
2025-02-06
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report aims to highlight opportunities for developing ecosystem-linked insurance - that is, insurance that integrates the effect of ecosystems in products covering coastal hazards. These products can provide funds for ecosystem restoration after a disaster occurs. This report points to several opportunities and ways forward for developing ecosystem insurance. Despite the challenges facing efforts to develop such insurance, advances are possible and could benefit both the insurance sector and Caribbean tourism industry.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Cook, S.; Wilks, A. Rios; Wilson, P.. 2025. Safeguarding Marine Ecosystems and Society: The Role of Insurance in Protecting Nature and Supporting Sustainable Tourism. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42774 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Mitigating Climate Change through Restoration and Management of Coastal Wetlands and Near-shore Marine Ecosystems : Challenges and Opportunities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-03)There is overwhelming consensus amongst climate scientists that the Earth's warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. To mitigate the most serious impacts of climate change a range of different strategies to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are required. Building on outcomes and recommendations from various coastal carbon activities, this report explains the GHG dynamics of coastal wetlands and marine ecosystems (chapter two). The importance of coastal wetland and near-shore marine ecosystem carbon pools for climate change mitigation are described in chapter three, with a brief overview of the status of these systems, including drivers of change and implications of degradation of carbon pools, provided in Chapter four. Chapter five gives an overview of policy opportunities under ongoing United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations and through revision of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) carbon accounting methodologies and eligible mitigation activities for developing as well as developed countries. The main recommendations for action are summarized in chapter six.Publication Scaling Up Marine Management : The Role of Marine Protected Areas(Washington, DC, 2006-08)This study answers the key questions on marine protected areas (MPAs) by assessing country experience with these and other tools along the marine management area continuum that have been adopted to address loss of biodiversity and fisheries and other marine resource degradation, which have eroded traditional use rights and cultural identify. In light of the confusing array of MPA types and other Marine Management Areas, the report creates a typology of tools based on their structure and objectives and commented on their relative effectiveness in achieving objectives, including marine conservation. Finally, the report assesses the best way of scaling up these interventions to achieve results at meaningful scales through replication, networking, or mainstreaming onto other platforms. The main findings of this report were: open access is a principal driver of resource degradation in coastal commons; enforceable governance systems will be required to begin to deal with the formidable problem of regulating access (including types and rates of resource exploitation)-systems that can accommodate different marine coastal and marine environments and that do not undermine local cultural values and practices; while they can be successful in regulating access and use, particularly at the scale of local community-managed reserves, MPAs are fragile governance structures; they require ongoing stakeholder participation in co-management arrangements with authorities and adequate resources to enforce limited entry and use; MPAs are costly to establish and maintain; MPAs cannot survive in isolation; and a broad spectrum of MPA and other emerging coastal and marine management (CMM) frameworks are now in use.Publication India Marine Fisheries : Issues, Opportunities and Transitions for Sustainable Development(World Bank, 2010-08-01)This study represents a collaborative initiative by the World Bank and the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, to review the marine fisheries sub-sector, within a broader sector that also includes aquaculture and inland fisheries. The policy note provides a major step forward in understanding current issues and future opportunities facing the marine fisheries sub-sector. The marine fishing sub-sector accounts for approximately one percent of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but forms an important component of the rural coastal economy, generating income, employment, livelihoods, and food security for an estimated 3.52 million people along the 8,118 km Indian coastline, who depend on fishing for their livelihoods. The study represents an initial analytical review of the Indian marine sub-sector with special emphasis on inshore waters, which faces the greatest challenges for management and sustainable development. The main objectives of the study were to: a) appraise the general structure, conduct and performance of the marine fisheries sub-sector in India with particular focus on the role that marine fishery plays in rural livelihoods for coastal communities; b) identify the main constraints in the marine sub-sector that are impacting on biological sustainability and economically healthy fisheries; c) draw on national and international experience to recommend alternative policy approaches and strategies to address these issues; and d) inform the Government of India during subsequent consultations with key stakeholders about long-term transformations towards better sub-sector performance.Publication Convenient Solutions to an Inconvenient Truth : Ecosystem-based Approaches to Climate Change(World Bank, 2010)Global warming and changes in climate have already had observed impacts on natural ecosystems and species. Natural systems such as wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, cloud forests, and Arctic and high-latitude ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate-induced disturbances. However, enhanced protection and management of biological resources and habitats can mitigate the impacts and contribute to solutions as nations and communities strive to adapt to climate change. Biodiversity is the foundation and mainstay of agriculture, forests, and fisheries. Biological resources provide the raw materials for livelihoods, agriculture, medicines, trade, tourism, and industry. Forests, grasslands, freshwater, and marine and other natural ecosystems provide a range of services often not recognized in national economic accounts but vital to human welfare: regulation of water flows and water quality, flood control, pollination, decontamination, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and nutrient and hydrological cycling. Current efforts to address climate change focus mainly on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by adopting cleaner energy strategies and on reducing the vulnerability of communities at risk by improving infrastructure to meet new energy and water needs. This book offers a compelling argument for including ecosystem-based approaches to mitigation and adaptation as an essential pillar in national strategies to address climate change. Such ecosystem-based strategies can offer cost-effective, proven, and sustainable solutions that contribute to, and complement, other national and regional adaptation strategies.Publication Convenient Solutions to an Inconvenient Truth : Ecosystem-based Approaches to Climate Change(World Bank, 2009-06-01)The World Bank's mission is to alleviate poverty and support sustainable development. Climate change is a serious environmental challenge that could undermine these goals. Since the industrial revolution, the mean surface temperature of earth has increased an average 2 degree Celsius due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most of this change has occurred in the past 30 to 40 years, and the rate of increase is accelerating. These rising temperatures will have significant impacts at a global scale and at local and regional levels. While it remains important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse climate change in the long run, many of the impacts of climate change are already in evidence. As a result, governments, communities, and civil society are increasingly concerned with anticipating the future effects of climate change while searching for strategies to mitigate, and adapt to, its current and future effects. Global warming and changes in climate have already had observed impacts on natural ecosystems and species. Natural systems such as wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, cloud forests, arctic and high latitude ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate-induced disturbances. Current efforts to address climate change focus mainly on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly through cleaner energy strategies, and on attempting to reduce vulnerability of communities at risk by improving infrastructure to meet new energy and water needs. This report attempts to set out a compelling argument for including ecosystem-based approaches to mitigation and adaptation as a third and essential pillar in national strategies to address climate change. The report is targeted at both Bank task teams and country clients. Such ecosystem-based strategies can offer cost-effective, proven and sustainable solutions contributing to, and complementing, other national and regional adaptation strategies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication A Blue Transformation for Pacific Maritime Transport: Overarching Regional Transport(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-29)This report has eight chapters. Following the introduction (Pacific Peoples and the Sea), the next six chapters each focus on a separate significant component of Pacific maritime transport, analyzing the major influences and challenges, and, where relevant, key areas for future attention. The topics are: international shipping, gateway ports, domestic maritime transport, four related sectors, cruise ship tourism, tuna fisheries, fossil fuel imports, and bulk shipping, natural disasters and climate resilience, and sector governance and institutions. The final chapter, transforming pacific maritime transport, ways forward, distils the report’s findings into the most significant and far-reaching opportunities to transform maritime transport in the Pacific. These are grouped into three broad themes, infrastructure, services, and governance and capacity building. Ways Forward comes at the end and, for readers unable to view the whole report, is a good place to begin. The rest of this executive summary explains why the Pacific is a special case for investment and provides a summary of the main chapters and findings. But first, it describes which Pacific Island countries contributed to the study.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Collapse and Recovery(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023)Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an enormous shock to mortality, economies, and daily life. But what has received insufficient attention is the impact of the pandemic on the accumulation of human capital—the health, education, and skills—of young people. How large was the setback, and how far are we still from a recovery? Collapse and Recovery estimates the impacts of the pandemic on the human capital of young children, school-age children, and youth and discusses the urgent actions needed to reverse the damage. It shows that there was a collapse of human capital and that, unless that collapse is remedied, it is a time bomb for countries. Specifically, the report documents alarming declines in cognitive and social-emotional development among young children, which could translate into a 25 percent reduction in their earnings as adults. It finds that 1 billion children in low- and middle-income countries missed at least one year of in-person schooling. And despite enormous efforts in remote learning, children did not learn during the unprecedentedly long school closures, which could reduce future lifetime earnings around the world by US$21 trillion. The report quantifies the dramatic drops in employment and skills among youth that resulted from the pandemic as well as the substantial increase in the number of youth neither employed nor enrolled in education or training. In all of these age groups, the impacts of the pandemic were consistently worse for children from poorer backgrounds. These losses call for immediate action. The good news is that evidence-based policies can recover these losses. Collapse and Recovery reviews governments’ responses to the pandemic, assessing why there was a collapse in human capital accumulation, what was missing in the policy architecture to protect human capital during the crisis, and how governments can better prepare to withstand future shocks. It offers concrete policy recommendations to recover losses in human capital—programs that will end up paying for themselves in the long term. To better prepare for future shocks such as climate change and wars, the report emphasizes the need for solutions that bring health, education, and social protection programs together in an integrated human development system. If countries fail to act, the losses in human capital documented in this report will become permanent and last for multiple generations. The time to act is now.Publication Doing Business 2020(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020)Doing Business 2020 is the 17th in a series of annual studies investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. It provides quantitative indicators covering 12 areas of the business environment in 190 economies. The goal of the Doing Business series is to provide objective data for use by governments in designing sound business regulatory policies and to encourage research on the important dimensions of the regulatory environment for firms.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.