For centuries, economists have studied the way that humans spend money and how they value goods and experiences, generating a wealth of knowledge that guides policy decisions. Recently, there has been great interest among conservationists in applying lessons and tools from natural resource economics to management and conservation challenges, where increasing human populations and the continued degradation of natural systems demand novel solutions. Six talks will discuss key advances in applying economics to marine resource management that highlight how current management is failing to achieve better outcomes that are well within reach. The panel will show how accounting for nonmarket ecosystem services leads to fundamentally different management decisions than conventional approaches that focus only on market-based services, how economic approaches to assessing tradeoffs highlight the ability to create win-win management solutions, and how the application of portfolio theory (decreasing risk by diversifying investments) to resource management produces fundamentally better solutions. Governments have been moving toward comprehensive management of marine resources, offering a great opportunity to affect real conservation change around the world with powerful new approaches. The session will provide the information and tools necessary to move in this direction.