Economics Commons^™

Environmental Destruction In The New Economy: Offshore Finance And Mangrove Forest Clearance In Grand Cayman, Katrina Jurn, Joseph Lavallee, Lawrence P. King

PERI Working Papers

Mangrove forests, which provide critical ecosystem services in tropical and subtropical coastal regions around the world, are increasingly threatened, with total mangrove area declining from 18.8 million hectares to 15.2 million hectares globally between 1980 and 2005. Focusing on the mangrove wetlands of the Cayman Islands, we use GIS spatial analysis to document past trends and project future trends of mangrove clearance, and a near-exhaustive series of 57 interviews with key business and political figures as well as leaders of environmental NGOs to identify the social forces driving these trends. Analysis of the satellite images shows that mangrove loss on …