Key Ecosystems Economic Valuation and Climate Change
Yemen is one of the countries well endowed with natural resources ranging from forests, Arabic woodland, mountainous ecosystems to vast marine ecosystems. For instance, the country commands over 2500 km of shoreline. It is reported that the Yemen marine ecosystem is the most endemic and highly diversified. However, over the years the country’s remarkable biodiversity and key ecosystems have been threatened and degraded by devastating land use changes and unsustainable consumption patterns (EPA, 2000). Consequently, the highly valued key ecosystems have been continuously depreciated through pollution, degradation and depleted through overstocking, deforestation, lack of maintenance of terrace amongst other factors.
One of the underlying factors for the degradation of Yemen’s key ecosystems is lack of integration of ecosystems economic values in economic decision making at national and local levels, lack of recognition and acknowledgement that ecosystem-economy is a closed system and that ecosystem deprecation feedbacks into slow economic growth and increase in poverty level particularly at the rural population. Thus, until such association is made and some sombre efforts undertaken to ensure that environmental costs and benefits are integrated in economic decision making at both national and local planning, then ecosystems will continuously be riddled with uncountable unsustainable and myopic consumption patterns and practises.
In light of the underlying factors for key ecosystem degradation and abuse, the document entails results of the key ecosystems economic valuation in the country, mechanisms and tools for integrating economic values of ecosystems in decision making at the national and local planning levels. Moreover, the report discusses climate change impacts on key ecosystems and measures to enhance ecosystems’ adaptation to climate change. Consequently, the main objective of the assignment is to provide information that will be used to update the NBSAPY by integrating the economic value of key ecosystems and climate change impacts.
