Gaining Ground Wetlands, Hurricanes and the Economy: The Value of Restoring the Mississippi River Delta David Batker Isabel de la Torre Robert Costanza Paula Swedeen John Day Roelof Boumans Kenneth Bagstad 1 Acknowledgments This report is a project of Earth Economics. The authors are responsible for the content of this report. Funding was provided by the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and a contribution from Norita Liebelt and Environmental Defense. We would like to thank the Louisiana State University School of the Coast and the Environment for hosting workshops and events that supported this report, the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics for their substantive contributions. We would like to thank the many people who contributed to portions of the report, reviewed drafts, and gave written and verbal comments. These include Louisiana Environmental Action Network Executive Director Mary Lee Orr, LSU Associate Vice Chancellor of Research and Economic Development Dr. Robert Twilley, Dr. Hassan Mashriqui of the LSU Hurricane Center, Dr. Paul Kemp of the National Audubon Society, Dr. Paul Templet former professor, Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation Coastal Sustainability Director John Lopez, Dean Wilson of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Gulf Restoration Network Executive Director Cynthia Sarthou, Tulane Law School Professor Mark Davis, U.S. Geological Survey Ecologist Greg Steyer, John Barras of the Corps of Engineers, Juanita Russell of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Norwyn Johnson with the State of Louisiana, Edmond Russo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana Science Director Natalie Snider, Jim Tripp and Paul Harris of Natural Resources Defense Council, Alaina Owens of Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Assessment and Restoration, Dr. Jenneke Visser of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Herman Daly of the University of Maryland, Annie Ducmanis of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, and Earth Economics staff Maya Kocian, Tedi Dickinson and Jim Pittman and Earth Economics board members Joshua Reyneveld, Joshua Farley, Ingrid Rasch, and Jack Santa Barbara. Special thanks go to Micah Cote, Tighe Stuart, Justin Platts, Laurent Nickel, Jake Harris, Jenn McFadden, Hakme Lee, Colin Cronin and Darin Leedy for their assistance in background research and fact checking. Cover Photo by Paul Keith www.paulkeithphoto.com 1121 Tacoma Avenue South, Tacoma WA 98402 telephone: 253.539.4801 • fax: 2 5 3 . 5 3 9 . 5 0 5 4 [email protected] www.eartheconomics.org2 The Authors David Batker, cofounder and executive director of Earth Economics, has worked for 20 years in over 30 countries changing economic policy to effect measurable physical improvements for people and ecosystems. His areas of work include climate change, fisheries, forest, coastal management, hazardous waste, land use, energy, agriculture, trade and international finance and improving lending requirements of international banks. With a B.S. in geology and biology from Pacific Lutheran University, he completed his graduate training in economics at Louisiana State University under Herman Daly, one of the world's foremost ecological economists. He has work experience in mining and oil and has worked at the World Bank, Greenpeace International and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement. Isabel de la Torre, cofounder of Earth Economics, was executive director of the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net) and the United States Society for Ecological Economics before she joined Earth Economics. She organized and cofounded ISA Net and the South East Asia Fishers for Justice. She has worked with local and national governments around the world, and NGOs working on international institutions on trade, finance, energy, forestry, fishery, toxics, environmental justice, indigenous peoples, coastal management, women, and human rights issues. She has degrees in communications and law from the University of the Philippines and has worked as a reporter, newspaper editor, and senior legal staff in the Philippines. Robert Costanza, the director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1979 in systems ecology with a minor in economics. He also has a master’s degree in Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Florida. Dr. Costanza is cofounder and past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and was chief editor of its journal Ecological Economics from its inception until September 2002. He currently serves on the editorial board of eight other international academic journals. Paula Swedeen, has 20 years of forest conservation and management experience as a wildlife biologist, policy analyst, and ecological economist, and has applied her expertise to a wide array of issues, including endangered species conservation, forest carbon protocol development and valuation of ecosystem services. She joined Pacific Forest Trust after working for the Washington Departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Wildlife, and as a private consultant. She holds a Ph.D. in Ecological Economics from The Union Institute, a master’s degree in Political Science and Environmental Studies from Western Washington University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Indiana University. John Day, a distinguished professor of Louisiana State University and a leading expert on the Louisiana wetlands, received his Ph.D. in marine and environmental sciences from the University of North Carolina in 1971. He has a master’s degree in zoology from the Louisiana State University. His research interests are in systems and wetland ecology as well as ecological modeling. Roelof Boumans, an expert modeler, received his doctorate degree in 1994 as an ecosystem ecologist at the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Systems in Louisiana State University. His dissertation focused on the material fluxes through estuaries and involved processing large datasets through field book and datalogger recording. He developed insight into estuarine hydrology and published reports on ecological consequences to altering hydrology. Dr. Boumans worked on developing a landscape model of the Great Bay estuary while holding a postdoctoral position at the Jackson Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. He is now recognized as one of the world’s top system modelers. Kenneth Bagstad, is a post-doctoral associate at the University of Vermont, where he received his PhD in 2009. Ken serves as the lead modeler for the NSF-funded Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES) project, which is building a series of web-accessible tools to map, assess, and value ecosystem services for environmental decision-making. Ken has also assisted in ecosystem service valuation studies for Louisiana, Washington State, Arizona, and Ontario, advised researchers working on Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) studies for Michigan and Utah, and explored markets and ecosystem service-based funding mechanisms for ecological restoration in Illinois and Washington State. Ken also holds a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University and and an M.S. from Arizona State University. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................................................................5 LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................................................................ 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................................12 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 A RICH AND ENRICHING DELTA.............................................................................................................................................................. 13 EYEING THE STORMS.............................................................................................................................................................................. 15 THE HURRICANES’ ECONOMIC IMPACT ..................................................................................................................................................17 RESTORATION PLANS AND RECENT LEGISLATION IN LOUISIANA ...........................................................................................................18 PART I: A NEW VIEW OF VALUE IN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA ...................................................................................19 NATURAL CAPITAL .................................................................................................................................................................................19 Natural Capital and Asset Management ..........................................................................................................................................19 Understanding Natural Capital.......................................................................................................................................................