There was considerable overlap among the recommendations of several of the seven theme groups and, to address this, the business team aggregated costs into seven implementation areas that are somewhat different from the Conference theme groups. The consolidated activity costs in these seven program areas form the foundation of the preliminary cost model:

The overall cost estimate for the practical action agenda is US$18.6 billion over ten years -- a reasonable sum compared to the more than $50 billion annually paid out by governments for “perverse subsidies” of various kinds that are actually supporting the catastrophic decline of life and health in the ocean.

The immediate priorities are estimated to require an investment of approximately US$4.8 billion over the first thee years beginning in 2003. Some of these key activities can be executed as individual programs, but the power of the agenda is that these programs will support each other if executed in a coordinated fashion. The table below outlines the short term and longer term costs for the agenda.

This integrated cost model is preliminary and not comprehensive. The financial estimates should be considered reasonable only as an order of magnitude. For example, they do not include all activities and associated costs needed ultimately to preserve the 20% to 30% of the global oceans recommended by many of the DOE experts. Rather the plan focuses on the highest priority actions required in the next three-year and ten-year periods. Six key aspects of a complete marine conservation program that are outside the scope of this initial cost model are:

*The model includes programs to protect over twenty LMEs and four hundred MPAs that would together cover about 5% of the world’s oceans, and the model contains only limited support for existing MPAs. *The plan assumes that all sustainable economic and community development costs created by establishment of LMEs and MPAs will be covered by current global aid programs. *The fisheries reforms will be piloted in only a few fisheries, and the plan assumes the global fisheries projects will be largely self-funded by leveraging current subsidy structures and expected economic benefits resulting from the reforms. *The cost model has not included resources, from trust funds for example, to cover perpetuity costs for MPA operations, nor other potential revenue sources resulting from MPAs. *The general scope of recommendations and the resulting cost model do not allocate significant resources to address regional or global land-based threats. *The plan assumes that enforcement costs, required to make LME or MPA management effective, will be covered by local government agencies.

Two funding decisions were announced at the Conference:
--Currently, there is an initial commitment of $5 million over five years from CI to implement the agenda.

--CI and the Government of Indonesia signed a Letter of Intent to work collaboratively on marine conservation, resulting in a commitment of $1 million from the Global Conservation Fund for MPAs in Indonesia, with a goal of increasing coverage to 30% in 3 years.

 Download a copy of the DOE Executive Summary