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Aparticular type of shellfishery in the Netherlands, namely cockle fishery in theWadden Sea, has received much attention from both policy makers and environmentalists. Until the 1950s, most of the catch resulted from fishing by hand. In the beginning of the 1960s the sector introduced mechanical techniques of fishing. According to environmental organizations (notably “DeWaddenvereniging”1), the process of mechanical shellfishing altered the sediment structure of the seabed in an irreversible way (Stichting Odus, 2001). An additional negative impact of cockle fishery is that it withdraws a great amount of cockles from the food web in the Wadden Sea. Cockles constitute an important element of the diet of the bird population in the Wadden Sea (EVA II, 2003). This does not imply, however, that the relationship between cockle fishery and the environmental quality of theWadden Sea is fully clear and understood. For a long time, it has been debated which policy measures should be taken. Some believed it is possible to make the cockle fishery more sustainable, while others pled in favor of forbidding the cockle fishery entirely. Recently, the government has decided in favor of the latter, based on the advice of a special committee for assessing policy in the Wadden Sea (Meijer, 2004).

This study performs an economic valuation of a marine protection program targeted at the prevention of harmful algal blooms (HABs) species along the North Holland open sea coastline of the Netherlands. The term “harmful” refers to a set of algal species that have significant damages to human health, to beach recreation, and to the marine ecosystem, including “red tides” (Anderson, 1994; Perrings et al., 2000; van den Bergh et al., 2002). Algal are primarily introduced in North European waters through ballast water of ships, i.e. water transported by ships across the oceans so as to keep a vessel in balance. It therefore makes perfect sense for port authorities to impose standards on ballast water treatment. Evidently, costs are associated with this activity. This, in turn, leads to the question which benefits are associated with marine protection programs.