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International audience; Coastal protection, an important coral reef ecosystem service, is threatened by increasing coral mortality, exacerbated by global climate change. Nature-based solutions in the form of coral restoration, while not perfect, can assist in rebuilding reef structure and improving the flow of the service for some sites. With a financing gap existing between what is required for conservation and what is being accessed, private investors should be playing a larger role in such restoration activities. Especially so as coastal hoteliers in particular, benefit from stable beaches and also have additional income generating potential with healthy reefs. Blended finance solutions in particular, are especially suited to restoration that incorporates substrate addition, while payments for ecosystem services are more suited to coral gardening. Conservation and finance practitioners must engage further and understand each other’s worlds, in order for these private sources to be effectively sourced and utilized.

MPAs enhance some of the Ecosystem Services (ES) provided by coral reefs and clear, robust valuations of these impacts may help to improve stakeholder support and better inform decision-makers. Pursuant to this goal, Cost-Benefit Analyses (CBA) of MPAs in 2 different contexts were analysed: a community based MPA with low tourism pressure in Vanuatu, and a government managed MPA with relatively high tourism pressure, in Saint Martin. Assessments were made on six ES: fish biomass, scenic beauty, protection against coastal erosion, bequest and existence values, social capital and CO2 sequestration, which were quantified via different approaches that included experimental fishery, surveys and benefit transfer. Total operating costs for each MPA were collected and the benefit-cost ratio and return on investment based on 25-year discounted projections computed. Sensitivity analyses were conducted on MPA impacts, and discount rates (5%, 7% and 10%). The investment indicators all showed positive results with the impact on the tourism ES being the largest estimated for all MPAs, highlighting the importance of this relationship. The study also demonstrated a relatively high sensitivity of the results to different levels of impacts on ES, which highlights the need for reducing scientific knowledge gaps.

International audience; The identification and economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) are becoming important components of coral reef management. In many contexts, protection of human assets against coastal floods is one of the most important ES provided by coral reefs. The methods utilized to characterize this ES should be able to accommodate situations with low data availability, without sacrificing robustness. In this paper, we suggest such an approach that utilizes expert opinion and does not require copious amounts of data. Our primary objective is to find a balance between simple and complex models that can be used in a data scarce environment, to produce an economic valuation of the coral reef ES of protection against coastal floods. The approach has three steps: (i) identify geographic zones and assets at risk, (ii) identify the contributing role of coral reefs in the protection of coasts and, (iii) value the annual repair costs of assets through the avoided damage cost approach. The proposed method seems appropriate for advocacy with policy makers, but appears to be less effective for small scale approaches, such as those required for Payment for ES negotiations or marine spatial planning.

In late summer 2005 a mass coral bleaching event occurred in the Caribbean. Here we quantify coral bleaching in Barbados at six sites on the island’s sheltered west and exposed southwest coasts, including nearshore fringing and patch reefs and offshore bank reef habitats. Onset of coral bleaching occurred in late August 2005 and persisted for many months after temperatures cooled. All reef habitats and virtually all coral taxa were affected, with an average of 70.6% of all colonies bleaching. Nearshore reefs ( 15 m) with an average of 80.6% of all coral colonies bleaching compared with 60.5% on the latter. Inter-species variation in susceptibility to bleaching was marked with >90% of colonies bleaching in some species whilst