Transcript An overview of the potential of environmental valuation to

An overview of the potential
of environmental valuation to
inform protected area
management.
Dr Mike Christie
University of Wales Aberystwyth
ICS-UNIDO workshop ‘Protected area management in Mediterranean coastal
areas: the importance of wildlife refugia and corridors within an urban and
industrial landscape’
Tunis, 11 – 13 September 2006.
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Overview
• Background
• Overview of environmental valuation
methods
• Case study: choice experiment valuation
study of UK biodiversity
• Conclusions
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Background
• The Mediterranean coastal fringe is host to
a wealth of important wildlife and natural
areas.
• However, these areas are under
increasing pressure from tourism,
industrial development and urban
expansion.
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Background
• Policy makers and planners need to make
informed trade-offs between:
– the tangible benefits associated with economic
development
• Accounted for in traditional economic theory in terms of
market prices and income and job creation.
– the intangible benefits (such as biodiversity
protection) that are derived from natural resources.
• Traditional economic markets tend to fail to account for
natural resources. Other approaches required to assess
this …
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Environmental valuation
• Although there is often market failure (and therefore no
market price) for natural resources
• … people do attain utility (value) from natural resources,
e.g. people like to watch wildlife, or benefit from
ecosystem services.
• It is important that we account for these values when we
make decisions about natural resources.
• Environmental valuation aims to measure the ‘consumer
surplus’ (i.e. value) of environmental goods and services.
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Total Economic Value
Total Economic Value
Use value
Direct use values
Non-use (passive use) value
Ecological function values
Option values
Existence values
Bequest values
Marketed Outputs
Unpriced Benefits
Benefits
Benefits
Benefits
Benefits
crops
meat
timber
recreation
landsacpe
local culture
flood control
carbon storage
water catchment
future drugs
potential gene pool
recreation options
satisfaction
from knowledge
of existence
passing benefits
to future
generations
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Environmental Valuation Techniques
• ‘Revealed’ preference approaches.
• Observes actions within surrogate markets (travel, house
prices) taken in response to environmental change.
• Largely restricted to ‘use’ values
• Examples: Travel Cost Method, Hedonic Price Method.
• Stated preference approaches.
• Attempts to elicit preferences by experiments or questionnaires
• May estimate both use and passive use values
• Examples: Contingent Valuation Method, Choice
experiments.
• Combined approaches
• Draws on the benefits of the above approaches
• Examples: Contingent behaviour
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Case study: Valuing UK biodiversity
using choice experiments
• DEFRA funded project to value the attributes of
biological diversity.
• Christie M, et al. (2006) Valuing the diversity of
biodiversity Ecological Economics. 58(2), 304-317.
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Choice experiments
• A survey based, stated preference valuation
technique.
• Respondents are asked to choose from a series of
three policy options: A, B, SQ
• Each option is described in terms of policy attributes
and levels (including a price attribute).
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Example of choice task
POLICY
OPTION
A
POLICY
OPTION
B
Familiar species of wildlife
Rare familiar species protected
Rare familiar species
protected
Continued decline in the
populations of familiar
species
Rare, unfamiliar species of
wildlife
Recovery of rare species to
non-threatened status
Continued decline in the
populations of rare,
unfamiliar species
Continued decline in the
populations of rare,
unfamiliar species
Habitat restoration
Wildlife habitats will continue
to be degraded and lost
Wildlife habitats will continue
to be degraded and lost
Only ecosystem services that
have a direct impact on
humans, e.g. flood defence
are restored.
Continued decline in the
functioning of ecosystem
processes
Habitat (species
interaction)
Ecosystem process
Continued decline in the
functioning of ecosystem
processes
You will pay an extra
Annual tax increase
£80.00
tax annually over a 5 year period
DO NOTHING
(Biodiversity
degradation will
continue)
You will pay an extra
£20.00
tax annually over a 5 year
period
Your tax bill will not be
increased
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Choice experiments
• A survey based, stated preference valuation
technique.
• Respondents are asked to choose from a series of
three policy options: A, B, SQ
• Each option is described in terms of policy attributes
and levels (including a price attribute).
• Attribute and levels are assigned using a main
effects orthogonal experimental design
• MNL analysis of respondent choices enables values
to be estimated for each policy attribute and level.
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Survey administration
•
Survey of 800 households: Cambridge and
Northumberland.
• MS PowerPoint presentation (25 minute)
– Introduced the concept of biodiversity
– Introduced attributes of biodiversity
– Description of biodiversity in case study areas
• Respondents then presented with a series of 5
choice tasks
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Choice experiment attributes and level
• Familiar species of wildlife
– Rare
– Rare and Common
• Rare, unfamiliar species of wildlife
– Slow down decline
– Recover to stable populations
• Habitat (species interactions)
– Restoration
– Creation
• Ecosystem services
– With human impact
– All services
• Tax (7 levels)
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CE results:
β
Value
Familiar species (rare)
0.126*
£35
Familiar species (rare and common)
0.331 *
£93
Rare unfamiliar species (slow down decline)
-0.165 *
-£46
Rare unfamiliar species (recovery)
0.408 *
£115
Habitat (restoration)
0.122 *
£34
Habitat (creation)
0.217 *
£61
Ecosystem services (human impact)
0.19 *
£53
Ecosystem services (all)
0.15 *
£42
Attribute
Price
-0.004 *
Pseudo R2
14%
N (Individuals)
343
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What do the CE results tell us?
• Is there evidence that people value
biodiversity?
– Only 15% of CE respondent chose ‘Do nothing’
• What aspects of biodiversity do people most
value?
– CE provides evidence that people care about:
•
•
•
•
Common and rare familiar species,
Rare unfamiliar species (but not a ‘slow down in decline’),
Habitat restoration and re-creation,
Ecosystem services which have direct impact on humans
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(but not those which do not affect humans)
How can the CE results be used to
inform policy?
• The CE provides monetary valuations of
the benefits arising from natural resources.
• These values are directly comparable with
market values.
• These values can (and should) be
incorporated in cost benefit analysis.
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‘Take home message’
• There are a suite of environmental valuation techniques
available to elicit the ‘intangible’ costs and benefits
associated with natural resources.
• Estimating the economic value of protected areas in the
Mediterranean will help to:
– Demonstrate that these protected areas are valued by people;
– Through cost benefit analysis, allow policy makers / planners to
directly compare the economic value of protecting natural areas
with other economic development options.
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Thank you for your attention.
Any Questions
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