Integrating economics into resource and environmental management : some recent experiences in the Pacific

In 2009, IUCN-Oceania Regional Office in partnership with SOPAC and SPC established the Pacific Resource and Environmental Economics Network (PREEN). The PREEN was established in response to a need by the small but growing group of practitioners in the Pacific for a professional body to share information and access peer support to conduct natural resource and/or environmental economics in the region. For those few natural resource and environmental economists that do operate in the Pacific there are few opportunities to meet professionally to share ideas and/or forums through which they can support each other. The establishment of the PREEN is thus a significant development in the region to enable practicing economists to support each other in their work and share their experiences. Equally important is the opportunity for the PREEN to enable increased awareness in the appropriate use of resource and environmental economics in the Pacific and act as a collective set of expertise to help mainstream resource and environmental economics in resource and environmental management. With the hosting of the first PREEN workshop at IUCN-Oceania in 2009, it became apparent that the diversity of natural resource management issues being tackled using economics in the Pacific is wide. Contained in this document is a subset of papers presented at the Inaugural PREEN Workshop.