Valuing wetland conservation: A contingent valuation analysis among Iranian beneficiaries

Wetland ecosystems conservation is a critical environmental policy and practice challenge. Though policy protection mechanisms ostensibly establish a commitment to long-term protection, the level and types of wetland threats are growing. Management of sustainable wetland resources requires community commitments to protection amongst predominantly rural stakeholders that draw upon wetland ecosystem services for their livelihoods and is vital to forming a policy strategy. This empirical study uses contingent valuation methodology with rural residents around four key wetlands areas in the ecologically fragile Khuzestan province in Iran. We find that 65% of the residents are willing to pay an amount of personal income to protect wetland ecosystems. The estimated Logit model with 84% prediction accuracy showed the variables of education and job relationship with the wetland had a positive effect on the probability of price acceptance, and the variables of living costs and marital status had a negative effect on the probability of price acceptance. In total, the conservation value of wetlands is estimated at 103351.52 USD. Finally, we assess the policy-relevance of our findings towards community windfall payments, tax disbursements, community resource management schemes, public participation, and social outreach programs to improve social learning buy-in to long-term conservation practices.     

Concern about threatened species and ecosystem disservices underpin public willingness to pay for ecological restoration

Public preferences for ecological restoration can be revealed through environmental valuation studies that aim to measure willingness to pay. However, respondents' environmental views will often influence the conclusions drawn from such studies. We conducted a national survey of perceptions of the benefits and perverse outcomes arising from ecological restoration using a dichotomous choice payment card. Using interval regression to estimate willingness to pay, we find that there are respondents who will perceive mostly biodiversity benefits from restoration, with a particular interest in threatened species recovery. We find that this eco‐centric view of the benefits of restoration also increases the dollar amount that respondents are willing to pay to support restoration activities. A proportion of respondents also perceive restoration as having negative impacts, with concerns orientated towards increased fire, decreased farmland productivity, and groundwater availability. Perceptions of the potential effects of restoration on land productivity had a significant negative influence on the amount of money respondents were willing to pay. These findings are useful for targeting outreach in order to garner public support for ecological restoration.     

Public Values for River Restoration Options on the Middle Rio Grande

River restoration is a widespread phenomenon. This reflects strong public values for conservation, though missing are studies explicitly justifying restoration expenditures. Public restoration benefits are not well quantified, nor are public preferences among diverse activities falling into the broad category “restoration.” Our study estimates public values for restoration on the Middle Rio Grande, New Mexico. Stakeholder meetings and public focus groups guided development of a restoration survey mailed to Albuquerque area households. Four restoration categories were defined: fish and wildlife; vegetation density; tree type; and natural river processes. Survey responses supplied data for both choice experiment (CE) and contingent valuation (CV) analyses, two established environmental economics techniques for quantifying public benefits of conservation policies. Full restoration benefits are estimated at over $150 per household per year via the CE and at nearly $50 per household per year via CV. The CE allows value disaggregation among different restoration categories. The most highly valued category was tree type, meaning reestablishing native tree dominance for such species as Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) and eradicating non‐native trees such as Saltcedar (Tamarix ramosissma). The high public values we have found for restoration offer economic justification for intensive riparian management, particularly native plant‐based restoration in the Southwest.     

A new approach for a modular valuation of LCAs

Goal Scope and Background

Qualitative valuation methods carefully try to avoid an aggregation across impact categories. However, such an aggregation often helps in obtaining a clear result for the valuation (which product scores better?). This article presents a new valuation method that uses an iterative approach. The application is demonstrated by the help of a case study for electric motors in trains.

Methods / Main Features

The approach combines two existing, unique valuation methods described earlier in literature, which both are of a rather non-aggregating nature, in line with ISO requirements, and were designed to be performed by LCA experts. The method is implemented in a computer software. Besides constants used within the method, the software needs as input solely indicator values from the Impact Assessment.

Results and Discussion

The iterative nature of these methods itself, and especially the combination of these methods, helps in achieving a valuation result for the LCA with not more subjective and aggregating elements than necessary. Subjective elements are clearly separated from others. The algorithm seems highly sensitive to changes in impact categories regarded as important ones. The implementation in software greatly eases the application of the method by transferring routine work from LCA experts to a machine. It ensures a reproducible result and prevents erroneous steps in a rather complicated valuation procedure. It further helps in hiding the complexity of the method from the user.

Conclusion

The approach of combining valuation methods in LCAs seems a fruitful one, and shows benefits when implemented in computer software, in terms of usability, and in terms of a more reproducible application. Care has to be taken to make sure users know what they do when performing an automated valuation procedure.

Outlook

We see three ways for extending the approach, namely: (i) become part of a toolbox of different valuation procedures; (ii) explicitly cope with uncertainty, and (iii) include different values for normalisation, in different regions worldwide. The software will be made available also in a stand alone version.

     

Approaches to valuing plant medicines: the economics of culture or the culture of economics?

This paper explores the scope and limitations of the economic valuation of biodiversity. How and why is this a useful exercise, but in what way is its usefulness constrained? These issues are discussed with particular reference to cultural values within the context of medicinal plants and phytopharmaceutical development. It is argued that whilst economic valuation is an extremely important and necessary aid to formulating conservation policy, it probably is not that informative about the motivations of people in their use of certain natural resources. This is especially true for the case of medicinal plants where belief systems about the causes of disease and therefore strategies for healing are important. The paper reviews studies which have attempted to put monetary values on medicinal plants and the option values of pharmaceuticals developed from plants, and discusses the applicability of the various approaches. The implications for conservation policy, and for likely collaboration between social and natural scientists is discussed.     

A Tropical Freshwater Wetland: III. Direct Use Values and Other Goods and Services

Understanding the economic value of a wetland as well as how people perceive its role in providing goods and services can provide insight into the wetland's actual role and the kinds of policies needed to ensure sustainable use. On the island of Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia, freshwater forested wetlands dominated by Terminalia carolinensis (hereafter called Terminalia) are often found just upslope from mangrove forests, which appear to be hydrologically connected to them. Many of these Terminalia forests have been converted into agroforests. A survey of 10% of the households on Kosrae showed that 89% owned some Terminalia land. Most grew taro, bananas, and sugar cane, either in or immediately adjacent to Terminalia forests. Most owned canoes constructed of Terminalia logs, and nearly half had harvested trees from these forests during the past year: 64% to clear land for agricultural purposes, 36% for building canoes, and 31% for other uses. Terminalia forests provided over $3.1 million worth of goods to Kosraeans, primarily from agricultural production. Approximately 2/3 of those surveyed understood that Terminalia grows best in a wetland setting. Most thought that Terminalia forests provide erosion protection and improve water quality. However, very few were cognizant of the ecological links between Terminalia and mangrove forests. Kosraeans attached little importance to the fact that Terminalia is endemic to the eastern Caroline Islands. If human dependence on these wetlands increases, the integrity of Terminalia forests, as well as adjacent mangrove forests, could be at risk.     

Social mapping of perceived ecosystem services supply – The role of social landscape metrics and social hotspots for integrated ecosystem services assessment,landscape planning and management

This paper contributes to the discussion on integrating societal considerations, stakeholders' perceptions and laymen knowledge into ecosystem services (ES) assessments. The paper illustrates how social mapping of perceived ES supply (or alternatively demand) can contribute to integrated ES assessment. Based on sketched locations of the, according to 38 respondents, most important ES at the local scale, we describe the perceived ES distribution with social landscape metrics (abundance, diversity, richness, risk, rarity) based on traditional landscape ecology indicators. We illustrate how social landscape metrics can inform ES management and planning and describe how synergies between ES as stated by the respondents differ from calculated synergies (the latter based on correlation coefficients between perceived ES abundance). We present indicators pointing to locations where (multiple) ES synergies are perceived by stakeholders (stated synergy index), and to conflicting ES and ES perceived to be at risk (risk index). Overlapping social ES hotspots based on the social landscape metrics with ES hotspots based on more traditional biophysical modelling (biophysical hotspots) and ecological inventories (ecological hotspots) results in social–ecological or social–biophysical hotspots, coldspots and warmspots relevant for nature and landscape planning, management and governance. Based on an analysis of the overlaps between social, biophysical and ecological hotspots on the one hand, and the contribution of ecological quality, land zoning categories and conservation statuses on the other hand, we discuss the added value of integrating social ES mapping in integrated ES assessment, above ES assessments based on biophysical or ecological attributes. Given the limited overlap between social hotspots and ecological or biophysical hotspots, we conclude that integrating stakeholders' mapping of perceived ES supply (or demand) into ES assessments is necessary to reflect the societal aspects of ES in ES assessments. However, with a limited sample of respondents, there is a risk of collectivisation of respondents' viewpoints as a common, societal stance. Moreover, the social landscape metrics are not suitable for describing the distribution of ES with low perceived abundance. Finally, we explain how social ES assessment can result in mainstreaming ES in planning, policy and practice.     

基于核算目的的生态系统服务估价方法研究进展

开展生态系统服务价值评估不仅是健全生态系统核算方法、完善已有核算体系的重要环节之一,也是加快生态文明体制改革、建设美丽中国的关键技术之一。然而,已有文献少有根据核算目的对生态系统服务的估价方法进行系统梳理并加以区分,这将会从需求侧造成对生态系统服务价值的高估,使不同部门之间的测度结果产生不一致。本文基于生态系统核算目的,对生态系统服务的估价方法展开综述。首先,从生态系统服务的内涵与价值入手,对生态系统服务价值的分类方法进行梳理,总结了生态系统服务经济单位的途径,以识别生态系统服务纳入国民经济核算体系的程度;其次,系统阐述了已有生态系统服务估价方法的内涵、适用范围和数据需求;再次,从生态系统核算的角度,探讨不同类型生态系统服务所适用的估价方法;最后,分析了当前研究存在的不足,并对未来研究予以展望。