Ecosystem accounting for marine protected areas: A proposed framework

Many policy initiatives and scientific studies promote the use of economic accounting as a statistical basis for end-users and policy-makers' evaluation of the distributive and allocative effects of environmental and economic policies. This can help in assessing the costs and the benefits of taxes and subsidies, public expenditures for environment protections, payment schemes for ecosystem services, or the construction of "green" gross product indicators. This paper develops an ecosystem-economic accounting framework to test some practical issues associated with the building of disaggregated accounts for single institutional units. Specifically, we focus on marine protected areas due to their direct relationship with ecosystems flows and for the latter's strong contribution to the former's productive and consumptive activities. The accounting framework aligns with the SEEA-EEA and it allows a straightforward integration of the MPA accounting records into regional and national Supply-and-Use tables aimed at performing input-output analysis. Moreover, it serves as a tool for the management of protected areas.