Financing the Blue Economy (BluFinPlan) - research projects and team country expertise
Philippines
Trinidad Tobago
Thailand
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Philippines
British Academy ODA Challenge-Oriented research project: Tackling climate change through health-oriented policy interventions in coastal marinescapes (timeframe: June 2024 to December 2026)
This international collaborative research project is funded by the British Academy ODA Challenge-Oriented Research Grants Programme 2024, supported under the UK Government’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF). The overarching goal of this project is to improve the environmental resilience of coastal communities in the Philippines through targeted climate action. Recognising that the Philippines, in common with many LMICs, is highly dependent on the ocean for food security, health and livelihoods, this international collaborative research project aims to address a global policy challenge at the nexus of climate change, nature and global health in the context of the Philippines’ blue economy.
The project focuses on the health co-benefits of sustainable mangrove management, including improved blue food security and nutrition in coastal marinescapes, which has the potential to unlock increased investments in blue carbon. The Philippines, accounting for less than 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, is among the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change impacts, such as sea level rise and extreme heat, with many consequences for health and livelihoods, particularly affecting the vulnerable coastal communities. As small-scale fishers are central to the Blue Economy, which remains a critical source of food and livelihood for over 60% of the country’s population, this project can inform policymakers of strengthening climate resilience through improved human and mangrove ecosystem health.
This BA project includes the development of two research programmes on building an evidence base for the economics of mangroves and developing policies for the sustainable growth of artisanal fisheries.
WP1 develops the evidence base to make the economic case for protecting and enhancing mangroves to benefit both local communities and climate mitigation efforts, with a particular focus on improving human and mangrove health. We pose a specific research question: To what extent can improved economic valuation of mangroves increase international climate finance and incentivise community participation in mangrove restoration to enhance health-oriented marine-based livelihoods and climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. A focus on the broad health and livelihood co-benefits of sustainable mangrove management with increased quantity/quality of mangrove cover provides additional robust evidence to justify the costs of mangrove restoration and protection, and to mobilise climate finance to increase the quality and quantity of mangrove cover.
WP2 develops feasible policy options for managing a just and equitable transition towards protection and restoration of mangroves that results in sustainable fisheries management with higher fish stocks and fish harvests. Our research fills a critical knowledge gap in understanding how local fisher livelihoods are affected by the implementation of MPAs, particularly during the initial transition period. During the early stages of the establishment of MPAs, when fisheries are degraded and there is a clear need for fish stocks to recover, fishing communities often lose access to areas where they have traditionally fished, and their livelihoods can be irreversibly harmed. We focus on co-design of improved policies to sustain benefits from coastal marinescapes over the short and medium term, with a particular focus on the transition phase and the role of incentives in sustainable MPA management across space and time. We will determine and explore the feasibility and distributional implications of innovative solutions for financing MPAs, focusing on the development of blue food systems.
Our project team includes Lei Bian (PI), Professor Elizabeth Robinson (CoI), and Dr Niko Howai from LSE, in collaboration with Palawan Council for Sustainable Development Staff, including Engineer Madrono Cabrestante Jr., Chief of the Environmentally Critical Areas Network Monitoring and Evaluation Division (EMED), (CoI), Dr Arnica De Guzman Mortillero, Natural Capital Monitoring Section Focal at the EMED (CoI), Ma. Christina Dalusung-Rodriguez, District Manager for Northern Palawan, and Kem Joseph S., Project Officer; and the Zoological Society of London.
LSE-funded projects:
- LSE Pilot Research, Dissemination and Impact Fund: Realising the health co-benefits of mangrove preservation in the Philippines: scaling up sustainable blue finance (timeframe: Jan to December 2025)
- LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Research Fund: The international role of the UK in scaling up sustainable blue finance for mangroves in the Philippines (timeframe: March 2025 to March 2026)
The two LSE research projects aim to improve the health and livelihoods of mangrove-dependent coastal communities in the Philippines through blue carbon finance. The overarching goal is to inform policymakers on how best to determine effective approaches to increasing the role of international climate finance in realising the global and local benefits of mangroves within well protected marine protected areas in the Philippines, with a case study on the role of the UK. We pose a specific research question: To what extent and how can blue finance be mobilised to scale up investments in the protection and restoration of mangroves to improve the health and livelihoods of coastal fishing communities, while also contributing to climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
We will produce a working paper in December 2025 and a policy brief in January 2026, which are key deliverables committed as part of an LSE Pilot Research, Dissemination and Impact Fund (PRDIF) project: “Realising the health co-benefits of mangrove preservation in the Philippines: scaling up sustainable blue finance”; and an LSE Southeast Asia Centre Research Fund project: “The international role of the UK in scaling up sustainable blue finance for mangroves in the Philippines”. The two LSE research projects are additional awards complementing and building on the British Academy ODA Challenge-Oriented research project.
Our project team members include Alice Bian, Professor Elizabeth Robinson and Dr Niko Howai, with the support of Maxine Gibb, in collaboration with Professor Lota Alcantara-Creencia, Vice President, Research, Innovation, Development and Extension (RIDE) and Professor at the College of Fisheries and Natural Sciences, Western Philippines University.
Through increased community engagement, we co-design innovative blue carbon financing strategies for investments in marine protected areas (MPAs) that protect and restore mangroves towards sustainable fisheries management. We are examining mobilisation of blue finance that incorporates innovative financial instruments, including the co-design of a proposed equitable structure for debt-for-mangrove swaps and a blue bond framework, which may have a high probability of mobilising private investors, philanthropic foundations, and development finance institutions. First, we propose the design of a debt swap mechanism for mangrove restoration that can generate greater financial flows to improve fisher livelihoods. Second, recognising this engagement challenge with local communities, we explore how a carefully-designed discrete choice experiment (DCE) can support the equitable design of a blue bond framework to finance the MPA that can protect and restore mangroves in Palawan. The findings from the DCE can particularly support local communities in responding to trade-offs between MPA restrictions imposed on villagers to protect blue carbon sequestered by the mangroves, and livelihoods, particularly individual income generation and food and nutritional security. Our valuation study examines local people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for financing a mangrove eco-tourism national park in Palawan, which may result in the development of a pipeline of income-generating alternative livelihood projects that reflect local priorities and local ecological knowledge, with incentive compatibility between investors and community needs.
Trinidad Tobago
Dr Niko Howai, Visiting Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute
The economic valuation, conservation and management of mangrove ecosystem services in Tobago
Dr Howai’s PhD research focused on the challenges associated with determining how the mangrove forested areas in South West Tobago should best be used. The various stakeholders, including government authorities, communities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as environmental groups, may have different interests and plans in how the site should be used. In one instance this research endeavours to determine how the communities surrounding the sites value the mangroves.
To contribute to this challenge, Dr Howai developed a valuation study of mangrove forested sites in Trinidad and Tobago. The valuation technique used was choice modelling, a stated preference approach. More specifically a choice experiment was conducted with various communities around mangrove forest areas to elicit willingness to pay estimates for a conservation and management programme of the area. The outcome of this research can support the authorities in decision making and policy development in the allocation of the mangrove forest resources in Tobago.
Dr Howai presented findings from his PhD on mangrove in Tobago at the 30th European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) conference in Bergen, Norway 16 -19 June, 2025. This centred around the extent to which Tobago’s population prefers protecting and enhancing mangroves over tourism-driven economic development or vice versa. His research used a discrete choice experiment and in-depth interviews to investigate residents’ preferences for mangrove ecosystem services and economic development.
Dr Howai presented at the 35th West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference held in Guyana 21 – 25 July, 2025 using a hybrid format. This was on an explicit step by step methodology for conducting DCEs in developing regions such as the Caribbean for researchers and practitioners to investigate residents’ preferences. Policies and decision making are often formulated at national level while impacts are first felt amongst local communities. Suggesting there is a requirement for more studies that cover residents’ preferences. He used his mangrove ecosystem services preferences in Tobago as an example of this.
Thailand
Dr Angie Elwin, Head of Research at World Animal Protection
Social-ecological resilience in mangrove shrimp farming communities in Thailand
Dr Elwin’s PhD thesis explored social-ecological resilience in mangrove shrimp farming communities in Thailand. Her methods were interdisciplinary, involving mangrove forest carbon stock assessments in abandoned shrimp ponds to investigate the impact of land-use change on ecosystem carbon and patterns of ecosystem recovery over time, and participatory approaches to explore local ecological knowledge and perceptions of ecosystem health and ecosystem service delivery among mangrove-dependent communities in coastal Thailand.
Dr Elwin also holds an MSc in Marine Environmental Protection, where her research involved mapping above ground biomass and degradation status of mangrove forests in Zanzibar (Tanzania). Angie has additionally spent time working in coastal Kenya, assisting with a mangrove Payments for Ecosystem Services project, and on a NERC funded research project to quantify the export of particulate and dissolved carbon from Kenyan mangrove forests.
Dr Elwin’s recent research has focused on the role of mangrove restoration in carbon storage and climate change mitigation, using global datasets from planted mangrove stands to generate evidence that informs restoration strategies and conservation policy.
Sri Lanka
Dr Menuka Udugama, a Senior Lecturer attached to the Faculty of Agriculture and Plantation Management Wayamba University of Sri Lanka
Dr Udugama’s PhD thesis looked at the spatial-dynamics of animal foraging patterns using two Bayesian simulation-based methods to suggest better resource management strategies especially in cases where data are hard to come by. She also holds a MSc. and a MPhil. in agricultural and resource economics. Dr Udugama is currently working as a Senior Lecturer attached to the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Her current research interest lies in the economic, social and environmental aspects of marine and mangrove ecosystems.
Dr Udugama has been involved in resource and environmental valuation-based research as a co-investigator and a team member funded by several local and international bodies such as the South Asian Network for Development & Environmental Economics (SANDEE), National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka (NSF) and the Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy of Sri Lanka (‘pricing the island project’). She investigated the coastal resource use in the Marine Protected Areas of Sri Lanka with a special focus on the socio-economics and management of mangroves ecosystems. This project was funded by the Wayamba University Research grant scheme. It explored the potential for spatially-targeted incentive systems for coastal communities for sustainable coastal management. A choice experiment was carried out to elicit the willingness-to-pay of the mangrove dependent communities and other stakeholders for the conservation of these areas.
Tanzania
Professor Elizabeth Robinson – Acting Dean, Global School of Sustainability (on secondment from the Grantham Research Institute)
Professor Robinson is a leading environmental economist who first started working on the blue economy in 2005, collaborating with Environment for Development Tanzania. During her over four years living in Tanzania, her research addressed resource dependent livelihoods in the context of terrestrial and marine protected areas. Professor Robinson played an instrumental role in supporting the establishment of the Environment for Development Centre Tanzania, hosted by the School of Economics, University of Dar es Salaam. She is an International Associate at the EfD Centre in Sweden and Tanzania. She led several Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)-funded research projects, particularly assessing Tanzania’s marine protected areas in Mnazi Bay Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park.