Abstract
The Gulf is considered to be a young sea in decline, with poor prognosis for continuing production of abundant natural resources. We compare and contrast ‘monetary’ and ‘environmental’ compensation as mechanisms for addressing ecosystem damage in the Gulf. The 1992 International Oil Pollution Compensation Conventions settle claims financially, but only for certain categories of oil spills. For example, aside from inherent difficulties of valuing ecosystem services and their losses, ecological damage from the time of injury to recovery (interim losses) is not compensated. Another approach involves reimbursement for environmental action/projects to restore affected resources and offset impacts until recovery. In habitat equivalency analysis, mitigation requirements are calculated from the type(s), severity, duration and extent of resource impacts. This approach was utilized to resolve several claims for damage from the 1991 Gulf War oil spill. Various compensatory projects resulted, including direct oil spill remediation and other environmental projects such as the establishment of ≥1 protected area (x ha for y years). Besides compensation, in this paper we advocate setting threshold levels for the protection of different coastal and marine ecosystems. This could be achieved by a proportion (c. 30%) of every major ecosystem becoming fully protected, through an expanded regional protected area network.
Published Version
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