ESTUARINE MANAGEMENT FROM A GLOBAL ECONOMIC-PERSPECTIVE

It has been man's excessive use of natural resources for industrial raw materials, his misuse of the environment as a place to discard waste and unwanted materials, and the high rates of consumption of commercially valued resources that is causing serious local and global consequences. Many of our environmental problems are the result of exceeding the constraints imposed by this inherent finiteness of the environment. Now and in the future, local and global decisions will have to be made which recognize that environmental resources are finite and that the assimilative capacity of the ecosystem is limited. In addition to providing estuarine managers with a conceptual understanding of environmental problems, economics has provided decision makers with practical analyses of potential solutions. This paper provides an overview of these issues. The basis of the historic relationship between environmental impacts and man's activities is presented followed by a discussion of how future problems can be prevented. Some examples of the contribution of economic research is also presented.