Cornell to lead $2.3 million effort to improve economic links to marine ecosystems

ITHACA — Cornell University today announced it will lead a team of international researchers to improve the link between local economies and the “natural wealth” of coastal communities in the East Asia-Pacific region.

The announcement follows the signing of an agreement between the Washington, D.C.–based World Bank and the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia. That agreement further cements Cornell as “a leading-expert institution” in coastal and marine research and management-science applications for sustainability, the school contended in a news release.

Mark Milstein, clinical professor of management and director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, will lead the team working on this effort, the school said.

Cornell University joins an international team that will undertake research to calculate a value for the services that natural assets in the coastal environment provide to neighboring communities,

The natural assets include seagrass beds, mangroves, and coral reefs, Cornell said.

The project team will develop analysis tools that identify and nurture “positive” links between local businesses, local economies, and “coastal natural capital,” the school said.

The project also involves the local, national and regional communities in the Philippines and Indonesia, Cornell added.

The Washington, D.C.–based Global Environment Facility (GEF), through an investment the World Bank administers, and UQ are funding the $2.3 million Capturing Coral Reef & Related Ecosystem Services (CCRES) project.

The Global Change Institute at UQ will manage the CCRES project, Cornell said.

The agreement paves the way for the appointment of Cornell University as a partner in the new CCRES project, the school said.

Additional funding for CCRES activities will involve Drew Harvell, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who will join a team valuing ecosystem services that contribute to regional policy decisions.

Cornell’s involvement in CCRES evolved from Harvell’s prior research on coral-reef health. The school’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future helped to “catalyze” the university’s involvement in the project, the school said.

In many tropical-coastal areas, natural capital is in “decline” as human populations expand and the value of ecosystem services is “misunderstood, overlooked, or ignored” in a quest for economic progress, Milstein said in the news release.

“In the long run, both existing businesses and entrepreneurial ventures must operate so they benefit from, and maintain the value of, critical coastal ecosystem services,” Milstein said.

Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds, along with their services, including reef fisheries, ecotourism, coastal defense, blue-carbon sequestration and storage, and water filtration, are under threat from pollution, exploitation, overfishing, and climate change, the school said.

In addition to Cornell University and the University of Queensland, CCRES partners include the University of California, Davis; the Washington, D.C.–based World Wildlife Fund; Currie Communications of Australia; the University of the Philippines; and De La Salle University, also in the Philippines, according to Cornell.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com