Recreation makes good economic sense.
I shared the Half Moon Bay example above but it’s one of many. Washington state coastal recreation drives $6 billion in annual spending and accounts for 14,325 jobs.
Take a trip outside the United States; in Bali and Biarritz and the airports are, literally, wallpapered with billboards advertising surf companies and local surf destinations.
Ocean recreation is incredibly popular, it attracts millions and millions of people across the nation to our coasts and dwarfs other kinds of ocean use (in terms of relative numbers of people and economic
value)
Conservation makes good economic sense.
Think of the places you love going. Think of the pristine areas that capture your imagination. Think of every National Park you’ve been to. Would your trip to Yosemite have the same value to you if there was a series of big box stores in the center of the park? Of course not. The value of such places is directly tied to how pristine they have been kept.
The value of conservation was the central theme in our “Save Trestles” fight. The generations before us preserved an area which is today a California State Park. Let’s not act with the short-sighted gain mentality and allow a private toll road to go through the middle of that pristine environment.
The argument’s been made that National Parks is America’s best idea. That’s a pretty hefty argument for the value of conservation. That same argument is why Surfrider is involved to preserve amazing places like the Gaviota Coast above Santa Barbara.
Restoration makes good economic sense.
I can make this argument with one picture. Check out Huntington Beach in the 1930s here. Look at this photo of Huntington Beach from the water. Can you name a US beach with a more uninviting beachfront than what you see in those
pictures? I can’t.
Now look at their website today, the URL says it all SurfCityUSA.com. They have turned it around, restored, much of the lost luster. Today it’s Surf City, a tourist destination. As we all know, it’s less expensive to conserve something in the first place than to seek tax dollars to restore it after it’s been damaged.
So back to my title, how much are our coasts worth?
The couple who tore down the $4.2 million dollar home put a price tag on part of the value they recieve from living near the water. The view by itself is worth $4.2 million dollars to them.
What’s it worth to you to live near the beaches?
How much would you save if you lived away from the coasts?
Is there a price you can put on value you get from riding waves or walking an unspoiled stretch of beach?
