Public goods are that category of goods which are availed by the government or the state. The government or the state pays for them, and the people in that country get to enjoy them. Usually, they are available in equal amounts to everyone and the fact that one person uses it does not mean that the others cannot use it. There are those goods that are classified as international public goods. Goods in this category are provided to the public through the cooperation of several states or countries, and they are available for people in the world to benefit from them. Public goods are classified into two categories. The first is pure public goods while the other is impure public goods. This write-up objective is to analyze incentives for marine biodiversity conservation, within the frame work of impure goods.
The non-excludable and non-rival goods are categorized as the pure public goods. Non-excludable means that these goods once available to the public, no single person is excluded from enjoying them. A good example is water from either the river, ocean or sea. Since the resource is available, no person is excluded from using it. Similarly, no person is excluded from enjoying the benefits that come with the ocean, sea or river waters. All people can enjoy these benefits without being questioned or restricted. Non-rival, on the other hand, is another name for indivisible. It means that public goods cannot be divided. The consumption or use of a good by one person or one country does not mean that the goods are available in fewer amounts for use by the other person. The same example above applies to the non-rival characteristic. People in one country using the ocean for transport do not mean that the amount of ocean available for use by people from another country is less.
Impure goods, on the other hand, are the complete opposite of pure goods. They exhibit two essential characteristics. They are partially excludable and or partially rival. Excludable means that rights to use a good or enjoy the benefits associated with the goods are not available for all to use as they please. Rather, some people are exempted from the use or enjoying the benefits such goods provide. Rival, on the other hand, means that the goods are divisible. The use of the goods by an individual or a country means that less of the goods are available for use by other people or countries. Whenever people in a use country benefit from impure public goods, it automatically means that fewer benefits will be available to people from other countries using the same goods or resources (Arriagada and Perrings, 798).
Externalities are the effects derived from a particular income generating activity which affects those people that are not involved directly. A good number of positive or negative externalities are categorized as impure public goods. Positive externalities are referred to as spillovers, and they imply that people not involved in the said activities get benefits though they did not ask for them. In this case, the production cost by producers is not well calculated. In the case of ocean resources, their cost is usually not well calculated making the production costs lower than should be the case. Similarly, the benefits are more, and people not involved in their conservation gets to enjoy the benefits that come with the conservation. Negative externalities, on the other hand, implies that producers are no fully accountable for their production costs. They take some shortcuts which have adverse effects on people who were not involved in the production at all. For example, failure to conserve wildlife affects people who are not directly involved in the conservation process. For instance, people who cut down forests to acquire land for agriculture are not the only people affected by this economic act. Climate changes, increased carbon in the environment, among other externalities whose results affect those that took part in the activity as well as those who were not directly involved.
Best shot, additive and weakest link are the classification of Public good supply technology.
(Arriagada and Perrings, 799). Additive technology of the public good supply implies; the amount of public good supplies is the simple sum of all amount produced by all participating countries, although they are produced separately. For instance, the amount of carbon in the environment is the sum of all carbon produced in all countries. In this classification, the same value is attached to public goods despite where they are produced. Best shot public goods supply technology, on the other hand, imply that benefits accrued from public goods by countries are dependent on the most efficient provider or supplier of the good. A good example is research firms in the world. The best are in the United States, but once certain findings are made, all people in the world enjoy the public goods despite the fact that the United States pay for the goods.
The final type of public good supply technology is the weakest link. This kind of technology reflects on the fact that benefits from a certain public good by other nations are that benefits less from the least effective provider and supplier. The lesser the benefits the least provider offer, the less the amount of benefits from the public goods enjoyed by the other countries. A good example is the control of diseases that are classified as infectious such as TB and HIV and AIDS. In densely populated countries, the likelihood of such diseases spreading is very high. Such countries are the least effective providers and their ability to control the disease limits the benefit of other countries.
Transfer of development rights, regulations, transacting income through non-governmental organizations, taxes and subsidies are the types of economic incentives created for impure public goods (Bilk; Kooten and Swanson, 28). All these incentives in one way or the other are created for impure goods, and they help enhance the conservation of marine biodiversity. Regulations are economic incentives that relate to controlling what people who own land can do and what they cannot do with it, with the aim to conserve marine life. For instance, the landowners are not allowed to divert river water and to cut off its flow downstream. Doing so would cut off the people downstream from enjoying this resource. It would also not help in marine biodiversity conservation as other species downstream that depended on that river would die or become extinct. Regulations are set to ensure that people do not indulge in harmful activities that would lead to loss of marine biodiversity even on their private lands (Bilk; Kooten and Swanson, 28)
Taxes and subsidies are the other types of economic incentives. Taxes help to control the harm people can cause to the marine ecosystem that would harm marine biodiversity. The more the amount of harm done, the more tax the people pay. Since people aim at limiting the amount of tax paid, they conserve marine biodiversity other than harming it which would lead to payment of more taxes. Subsidies, on the other hand, are given by the government. Usually, people are compensated for conserving their lands for wildlife and other marine biodiversity other than utilizing it for their needs. The people could utilize wetlands by converting them into agricultural lands and do other activities that could cause loss of marine biodiversity. However, when subsidies are provided as an incentive, they tend to avoid this thus conserving marine biodiversity.
Transfer of development rights is another type of economic incentive. It entails having the rights which can be transferred to landowners who decide to use part of their land for conservation of wildlife or marine biodiversity. They are mainly useful in an area where the results are advantageous such as along the coast or other animal corridors. By offering the development rights, people can conserve marine biodiversity on private properties. Transferring income through NGO involvement is another economic incentive. It entails funding NGOs so as to conserve marine biodiversity. NGOs have access to land and can help spread the word of marine biodiversity conservation especially to private landowners. They can also help in the conservation of biodiversity fight through spreading awareness on the importance of conservation. Funding these organizations, thus helps to conserve marine biodiversity.
Works cited
Arriagada, Rodrigo and Charlse Perrings. "Paying For International Environmental Public Goods." Journal of The Human Environment (2011): Vol 40; ISSN 0047-7447: 798-806.
Bilk, Erwin; Kooten, Cornelis & Swanson Timothy. Economic incentives and wildlife conservation (2003): Print
