Valuing the Socio-Economic Effects of Cetacean Recovery
The monetary value of cetacea is gaining increasing interest within academia and the profit- and non-profit sectors, driven principally by the carbon sequestration contributions of cetacea. This paper contributes to this expanding field by reviewing the literatures related to the use and non-use values of cetacea; presents an assessment of the strengths of these literatures, and identifies the methodological and coverage challenges that remain. Whilst progress has undoubtedly been made towards establishing the value of these marine mammals, these values apply to specific cetacean populations in specific environments and to specific methodological choices, making aggregation to the global level as yet unfeasible. The paper concludes by augmenting the valuation framework currently in the literature