The effects of economic development on the exploitation of renewable resources are investigated in settings where property rights are ill defined or not enforced. This paper explores potential conservation implications from labor and product market developments, such as enhanced transportation infrastructure. A model is developed that predicts individual fish catch per unit effort based on characteristics of individual fishermen and the development status of their villages. The econometric model is estimated using data from a cross-sectional household survey of artisanal coral reef fishermen in Minahasa, Indonesia, taking account of fishermen heterogeneity. Variation across different villages and across fishermen within the villages is used to explore the effects of development. Strong evidence is found for the countervailing forces of product and labor market effects on the exploitation of a coral reef fishery.

A contingent valuation (CV) method was performed to estimate the conservation value of the Woopo Wetland, Ramsar site, in Korea. The CV survey was rigorously designed to comply with the guidelines for best-practiced CV studies. Respondents overall accepted the hypothetical market and were willing to pay a significant amount (2,731 to 3,960 Korean won = USD 2.10 to 3.05), on average, per household annually to conserve the wetland. These findings have important implications for efforts to consider environmental quality in policy decisions.

This paper estimates maximum sustainable yield and maximum economic yield from Schaefer and Fox surplus production bioeconomic models to find evidence of biological and economic overfishing, and their consequences in Gulf of Thailand demersal fisheries. The paper examines alternative policy instruments to reduce overfishing. The discussion emphasizes strengthening fishery management for implementing limited access, and a combination of co-management, and decentralization of fisheries management. The use of license fees that serves as a double dividend tax to reduce fishing effort and fund monitoring and enforcement has been proposed as one of the possible economic instruments.

The purpose of this paper is to review the applications of non-cooperative bargaining theory to water management problems. The interest in this subject stems from two considerations: (i) water resources continue to be mismanaged, despite their recognized importance for sustainable development, in particular in developing countries; (ii) negotiated decision making has the potential to improve water management, yet there is still little formal understanding of the forces driving bargaining processes, and applications of formal negotiation theory to water issues are also lacking. This paper surveys the existing non-cooperative bargaining models applied to water management problems, with the purpose of preliminarily assessing whether such a formal approach in the phase of problem exploration and policy formulation can support decision makers in the real world. It is the contention of this paper that the proposed approach may offer direct and indirect support by: shortening the time needed to reach an agreement through the (theoretical) identification of an ‘acceptability space’, and helping select policies which are self-enforcing and, therefore, acceptable.