CORAL REEFS IN VIETNAM: ECONOMIC VALUE, RESOURCE DEPENDENCE
AND COASTAL POVERTY
Pham Khanh Nam
Tran Vo Hung Son
Environmental Economics Unit,
University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Herman Cesar
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)
The Netherlands
Abstract:
In many tropical countries, coral reef ecosystems provide many goods and services to coastal populations.
They form an important source of income to the local population, who are often living at the subsistence
levels, through fishery and mariculture. Moreover, coral reefs contribute to local income and foreign
exchange by attracting tourists. They also form a natural protection against wave erosion. However, coral
reefs are threatened by a variety of anthropogenic impacts, such as physical destruction from fishing gear,
mining, anchors, divers and other causes, over extraction and use by fishers and/or visitors, pollution or
sedimentation from local sources. These have been eroding the economic value of coral reefs, yet
dependence on the reefs by the local poor remains large and pressures along the coastline are on the
increase.
A paradigm for linkages of economic valuation, resource dependency and coastal poverty can help with
coral reef management and policy regarding support for coral reefs and coastal communities as a strategy
of poverty alleviation by looking at benefits of different coral reefs functions and services for different
stakeholders and management options. This research assesses the economic value of coral reefs in selected
sites in Vietnam through analysis of reef fisheries and reef-related tourism, as well as other services
provided by reef ecosystems for different stakeholders. It also assesses the dependence of local population
on coral reefs, quantitatively showing vulnerability of local population on reef degradation and potential
poverty links. And it analyses the costs and benefits of management options regarding reef-related threats
like destructive fishing and regarding various regimes like marine protected areas through cost benefit
analysis and multi-criteria analysis.
The economic valuation (Total Economic Value, Cost Benefit Analysis) and its techniques (Contingent
Valuation, Travel Cost, Loss of Production, etc.) applied to coral reef ecosystems are discussed in relation
to examples in Vietnam. Main indicators and its framework for resource dependence, livelihoods and
poverty are analysed as an approach to understand the complexity nature of the lives of vulnerable coastal
communities.