Implementing efficient conservation portfolio design

Modern tools for cost-effective conservation reserve site planning require the planner to have information about spatial distributions of conservation costs and benefits. Climate change creates unprecedented uncertainty about future land values and species habitat ranges, such that conservation scientists cannot map costs and benefits with certainty anymore. This paper contributes to the literature on the economics of conservation in the face of climate change uncertainty. It advances a new method for using modern portfolio theory to choose lands to protect that yield total conservation returns with less uncertainty. It explores the implications for portfolio recommendations of variation in the correlations between ecological and land-value responses to climate change. It also tests the robustness of the method to shortcuts that might be taken to simplify analysis, identifying problems that arise if conservation costs are ignored in portfolio analysis and demonstrating when portfolio recommendations are sensitive to how ecological benefits are quantified.     

Spatial discounting of ecosystem services

The impact of conservation efforts targeted at preserving ecosystem services largely depend on the welfare implications associated with spatial variations in the provision of ecosystem services. While there is ample empirical evidence of spatial discounting or decay of the valuation of ecosystem services, there are still few underpinnings based on welfare economic theory. We establish a theory of spatial discounting that closely follows the concept of time discounting pertaining to climate change, and show spatial discount rates in the consumption, ecosystem service, and willingness to pay (WTP) numeraires. We consider the role of key parameters such as pure rate of spatial preference, consumption change, ecosystem services change, population density, and elasticity of marginal utility. We find that the spatial discount rate of WTP for ecosystem services that frequently appears in the empirical literature is the difference between the ecosystem service discount rate and consumption discount rate, where the ecosystem service discount rate includes both physical distance decay and welfare effects. Finally, we use numerical simulations to illustrate how the three different spatial discount rates vary with the spatial distance from the source of ecosystem services and with consumption patterns, implying many more possible spatial variations of WTP.     

Patterns of multi-agent land conservation: Crowding in/out,agglomeration, and policy

Private agents make large contributions to networks of conserved land, but little is known about how private agents’ decisions might be altered by government actions. This paper explores the impact of public conservation and public policy on the quantity and configuration of private land conservation and the extent to which the social optimum is reached. Because land conservation benefits often have thresholds and spatial characteristics, we consider the impact of different land conservation benefit functions on the patterns of conservation created by the interaction of private and public agents. We find that public conservation crowds private conservation in or out depending on whether marginal conservation benefits increase or decrease with total acreage, and crowding out is mitigated by the presence of budget constraints. We show how land conservation agents might interact strategically in space depending on preferences over fragmentation, and we explore that spatial strategic interaction in a case with a regional land trust and a case with hot-spot parcels. We identify when government policies, such as agglomeration bonuses and mitigating coordination costs, are most likely to increase the social benefits provided by private land conservation agents.     

Marginal Valuation of Charismatic Species: Implications for Conservation

Most contingent valuation studies focus on total willingness to pay (WTP) as a measure of welfare change. For policy involving species preservation, however, it is important to distinguish between the benefits of preventing a species from going extinct and the benefits of preserving numbers above the minimum viable population (MVP) level. Once MVP is exceeded, marginal WTP becomes relevant. These propositions are illustrated for the case of one charismatic species whose management is much debated, minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. It is shown that, for a given estimate of total preservation value, strict conservation and extinction can both be optimal. This finding highlights the importance of collecting marginal values in contingent valuation surveys.     

Cost-effective species conservation in exurban communities: A spatial analysis

Exurban areas have increasingly become zones of conflict as conservation and development compete for the same finite land resources. Conversion of natural areas to land dominated by human use results in loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitat which often lead to species endangerment or even extinction. Recently, reserve site selection models have begun to integrate spatial attributes in order to design more compact and connected reserve networks that are thought to improve long-term species persistence. While these models are a good step forward to designing conservation reserve networks, they might not be adequate for use in exurban areas that consist of heterogeneous mosaics of land uses where habitat fragmentation already exists and not all parcels are available for preservation. This paper presents a species conservation framework that expands upon traditional reserve site selection models in three ways. First, because of the focus on exurban areas, the framework used here allows for land conversion within core habitat patches. Second, the framework provides a more robust assessment of connectivity among patches by accounting for land-use heterogeneity in the dispersal matrix. And third, the framework explicitly incorporates species population dynamics. We apply our conservation framework to the case of pond-breeding salamanders in an exurban community in Rhode Island, USA. Comparisons are made between the outcomes for uniform conservation policies and more flexible policies that accommodate ecological and economic heterogeneity. As expected, policies that offer more flexibility in the decision-making process are less costly in terms of foregone development. Conservation planners should consider core habitat patches, dispersal matrix, and spatial scale in their decision making. By not assessing the potential impact of dispersal barriers, reserve site selection models will result in conservation plans that may not protect species over the long term, particularly for species residing in highly fragmented landscapes such as those found in many exurban communities.     

森林资源生态价值支付意愿的实证分析——以“京津唐—承”区域为例

本文针对我国河北省承德市森林资源,以"京津唐—承"区域为研究对象,通过建立多元线性回归模型,分析了影响居民对森林资源生态价值支付意愿的诸多因素,并根据平均支付意愿对承德市森林资源生态价值及相关方的受益大小进行了估算。结果表明,承德市森林资源生态价值为163.27亿元,其中森林资源所在地承德市受益17.92亿元,占10.98%,周边区域京津唐3市受益145.35亿元,占89.02%。在众多因素中,收入、居住地以及对森林资源重要性的认识程度是影响居民对森林资源生态价值支付意愿大小的主要因素。     

Respondent direct experience and contingent willingness to pay for new commodities: a switching endogenous interval regression analysis

Most environmental economists argue that direct experience with the good being valuated, or with similar goods, is a precondition for providing valid willingness to pay (WTP) responses to contingent valuation questions. Two questions are posed in this article. The first is whether previous use experience of a resource (Séné nature reserve) similar to that being valuated (future nature reserves) and located in the same geographical area (Gulf of Morbihan) impacts on WTP. The second is whether accounting for the endogeneity of direct experience matters in the estimation of WTP. We find that respondents who have not experienced the Séné nature reserve provide value estimates that are statistically comparable to that of respondents who have experienced it. Our assumption is that respondents have acquired sufficient and adequate experience of future nature reserves from the questionnaire that experience obtained by experiencing the Séné nature reserve was not necessary for making a valid value formulation. Hence, aggregation of WTP estimates to obtain a total valuation of the future nature reserves is reasonable over the full target population. In addition, our results show that direct experience is endogenously determined; but controlling for the endogeneity has a marginal effect on WTP estimates.     

Enhanced Geospatial Validity for Meta-analysis and Environmental Benefit Transfer: An Application to Water Quality Improvements

Meta-regression models are commonly used within benefit transfer to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental quality improvements. Theory suggests that these estimates should be sensitive to geospatial factors including resource scale, market extent, and the availability of substitutes and complements. Valuation meta-regression models addressing the quantity of non-market commodities sometimes incorporate spatial variables that proxy for a subset of these effects. However, meta-analyses of WTP for environmental quality generally omit geospatial factors such as these, leading to benefit transfers that are invariant to these factors. This paper reports on a meta-regression model for water quality benefit transfer that incorporates spatially explicit factors predicted by theory to influence WTP. The metadata are drawn from stated preference studies that estimate per household WTP for water quality changes in United States water bodies, and combine primary study information with extensive geospatial data from external sources. Results find that geospatial variables are associated with significant WTP variations as predicted by theory, and that inclusion of these variables reduces transfer errors.     

A review of the spatial economics of non-timber forest product extraction: Implications for policy

Patterns of forest cover and forest degradation determine the size and types of ecosystem services forests provide. Particularly in low-income countries, nontimber forest product (NTFP) extraction by rural people, which provides important resources and income to the rural poor, contributes to the level and pattern of forest degradation. Although recent policy, particularly in Africa, emphasizes forest degradation, relatively little research describes the spatial aspects of NTFP collection that lead to spatial degradation patterns. This paper reviews both the spatial empirical work on NTFP extraction and related forest degradation patterns, and spatial models of behavior of rural people who extract NTFPs from forest. Despite the impact of rural people's behavior on resulting quantities and patterns of forest resources, spatial–temporal models/patterns rarely inform park siting and sizing decisions, econometric assessments of park effectiveness, development projects to support conservation, or REDD protocols. Using the literature review as a lens, we discuss the models' implications for these policies with particular emphasis on effective conservation spending and leakage.     

Spatial Heterogeneity of Willingness to Pay for Forest Management

The paper investigates the spatial heterogeneity of public’s preferences for the implementation of a new country-wide forest management and protection program in Poland. Spatial econometric methods and high resolution geographical information system data related to forest characteristics are used to explain the variation in individual-specific willingness to pay (WTP) values, derived from a discrete choice experiment study. We find that respondents’ WTP is higher the closer they live to their nearest forest, and the scarcer forests are in the area where they live. Interestingly, the higher the ecological value of forests in respondents’ area, the more people prefer extending areas of national forest protection. We also investigate spatial patterns in individual-specific WTP scores and in latent class membership probabilities, finding that preferences are indeed spatially clustered. We argue that this clustering should be taken into account in forest management and policy-making.     

Willingness to Pay for Ancillary Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation

Assessing the Willingness to Pay (WTP) of the general public for climate change mitigation programmes enables governments to understand how much taxpayers are willing to support the implementation of such programs. This paper contributes to the literature on the WTP for climate change mitigation programmes by investigating, in addition to global benefits, the ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation. It does so by considering local and personal benefits arising from climate change policies. The Contingent Valuation Method is used to elicit the WTP for ancillary and global benefits of climate mitigation policies in the Basque Country, Spain. Results show that WTP estimates are 53–73% higher when ancillary benefits are considered.     

Impacts of transportation infrastructure on single-family property values

New or long-standing public infrastructure such as highways, airports, and ports of entry (POE) can increase adjacent property values generating a value premium for private developers and adjacent property owners. States and local governments aim to determine the geographic footprint and anticipate the economic value created by transportation infrastructure proximity and accessibility since it represents an opportunity to capture some infrastructure costs. Hence, it is desirable to understand the degree of correlation between transportation infrastructure proximity and changes in real property values in a spatial context particularly when defining economic development zones where transportation investments are planned and where governments expect to recover some of the infrastructure cost from increases in real property values. This research applies geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis to determine the geographic footprint and quantify the impacts of transportation infrastructure proximity and accessibility on real property values in El Paso, Texas using a 2013 cross-sectional data set. The presence of spatial nonstationarity and heterogeneity confirms that transportation infrastructure proximity and accessibility might generate premiums on real property values, but that such premiums are not always positive and are occasionally negative. GWR shows that benefits from a transportation facility can be capitalized by non-adjacent parcels. Finally, GWR maps can help better policy development by estimating how much value is added by infrastructure proximity and accessibility throughout particular locations.     

Interval bidding in a distribution elicitation format

Interval bidding allows people to report a range of values for a non-market good. Herein, we allow people to choose their distribution over this range endogenously. We consider a multiplicative error model explaining the willingness to pay (WTP) which is estimated using a feasible generalized least squares estimator. We apply our framework to a representative sample of the French population who were asked about the valuation of a bear conservation programme. We find that most participants prefer stating their WTP as a range rather than a point, but the shape of the distribution greatly varies across people. Our results support the use of the interval bidding with endogenous distribution approach in valuation studies.     

Marginal WTP and Distance Decay: The Role of ‘Protest’ and ‘True Zero’ Responses in the Economic Valuation of Recreational Water Quality

We evaluate the sensitivity of distance decay in individuals’ stated willingness to pay (WTP) for water quality improvements in eutrophied lakes. We extend the standard model of contingent valuation (CV) by allowing individuals to adopt a sequential evaluation process consisting of two decision stages. In the first stage respondents decide whether they are ‘protesters’, have a WTP   \(=\)   ‘true zero’ or a \(\hbox {WTP}>0\) . Conditioned on a strictly positive WTP, we use Lee’s selectivity-corrected model to determine the magnitude of their WTP in the second stage. Using CV survey data from Norway we find significant distance decay in the first stage classification of respondents as ‘protesters’, ‘true zero’ WTP, or positive WTP. In the second stage model for positive WTP responses, we find little or no significant relationships when correcting for selection. Results suggest that previous findings of significant distance decay in contingent valuation of lake and river water in Europe may be driven by the definition of ‘protest’ and ‘true zero’ respondents. We find that WTP for water quality may be more useful as a qualitative indicator of political support for user financed water quality measures, than as a cardinal measure of marginal utility of water quality improvements.     

Economic evaluation of healthcare technology improving the quality of social life: the case of assistive technology for the disabled and elderly

Public investments in healthcare technology for the disabled and elderly to improve the quality of social life have been vigorous, but the economic evaluation of the assistive technology is still lacking. Under this circumstance, the purpose of this study is to analyse the socio-economic value of developing assistive technologies with the potential to improve the quality of social life, especially for disabled and elderly individuals. Based on a survey of 400 respondents, the spike model, a special form of the contingent valuation method (CVM) is applied to assess the value of assistive technologies. In Korea, a household’s willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the development of assistive technologies is US$4.26 per year, on average, in the form of a government-levied tax; although many people express zero WTP for the development of these technologies, people with higher household savings, higher levels of education and higher levels of charity donations have a higher WTP for the development of assistive technology. We conclude that although assistive technologies have considerable economic value many people express zero WTP for the development of these technologies. Therefore, political and social educational efforts are necessary to reach social consensus on the government investment in such technologies.     

基于多种保护特征协同与权衡的区域自然 保护地网络规划 ——以北京为例

自然保护地网络(PAN)对保护生物多样性、维持区 域重要的生态功能，促进生态空间与建设空间的可持续发展有 重要作用。为了全面实现保护目标，需要综合多种保护特征的 空间分布关系、保护成本等因素，对自然保护地网络中的各类 保护地进行高效明确的空间规划。研究以北京为例，依托系统 保护规划(SCP)框架建立区域尺度自然保护地网络规划的技 术路线。针对生物多样性和生态系统服务保护特征进行制图和 空间相关性分析，定义3类保护分区，采用空间优化算法工具 (Marxan with Zones)对保护分区进行3种情景的优先选址 布局，以最大限度地提高保护特征之间的协同，减少保护特征 之间的权衡。结果表明：对比绝对理想的保护场景，在严格的 保护场景中将保护目标以一定比例分配至相邻的分区，在提高 保护目标的实现率、促进保护特征之间的协同上更具有优势。 该研究能够为区域自然保护地网络的建设提供有效依据。     

Economic Valuation of the Threat Posed by the Establishment of the Asian Tiger Mosquito in Australia

Invasive species policy could be better informed if we understood how much people value reductions in the risks posed by these organisms. This study investigates the public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for additional measures to reduce the risk of invasion of the Australian mainland by the Asian tiger mosquito (ATM). The study contributes to the literature by applying a stated preference method to estimate the public’s WTP to reduce the risk of an ATM invasion, expressed as a change in probability. It is the first ex ante invasive species analysis to test over two discrete invasion reduction probabilities based on management effort. Further, to overcome the challenges in valuing changes in probabilities, the study presented respondents with a well-defined discrete difference in the final probability, with one scenario reducing risk from 50 to 25% and the other from 50 to 5%. We find a significant difference in the mean WTP values between these two scenarios (A$67 vs. A$90). The overall conclusion is that estimated benefits of reducing the probability of an ATM incursion outweigh the costs.     

Community participation in the management of wetland nature reserve：a case study of Nanjishan Nature Reserve, Jiangxi, China

In recent years, more and more conflicts have emerged in the management of nature reserves, of which themain problem is that how to carry out the campaign of conservation along with the promotion of development of localeconomics. To resolve the actual problem in Nanjishan National Wetland Nature Reserve and explore the idiographicmethod of the management of the wetland reserve, some studying methods including face-to-face interviews, informaldiscussion with local leaders and officials, group discussion with local fishers, questionnaire, and job of the conversationstation have been carried out. The results show that the education level of the local people is low; only 5% of the localpeople have an opportunity to the junior college; the main income of the local people is fishing, which accounts for 70%more or less; and the income is coming down year by year because of the unreasonable way of fishing. To cope with theproblems, some reformative way of management and the development of the reserve are introduced, such as establishingan NOG that constitutes of local fishermen to achieve the goal of community co-management, developing Bed andBreakfast and so on. Through practice of the management of the participation of the local people, we draw the conclusionthat the local people have a great desire to improve their life level, and to make the co-management of the reserve easy,it is important for the managers to play the role of pilot including engrafting the new ideas, giving some subsidy toencourage the local people to take part in the management. In addition, making local people perceive value of the reserveand the close relation between reserve conservation and the promotion of level of their life. On this basis, they incline totake part in the management of the reserve.     

Energy efficiency and heating technology investments: Manipulating financial information in a discrete choice experiment

We elicit homeowners’ willingness to pay (WTP) for energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies in the context of heating appliance replacement. We employ a within-between subject design that involves manipulating information in a two-stage discrete choice experiment (DCE) and use WTP space estimation to identify the role of financial information in reducing fossil fuel use. We find that homeowners’ average valuation of energy efficiency exceeds associated heating cost savings, suggesting that they also consider non-monetary benefits when evaluating this type of investment, whereas information about private and pro-social benefits of investments only has a limited impact on WTP. Evidence also suggests that homeowners have a strong preference for the existing technology. Consequently, fossil fuel users’ WTP for switching to low-carbon technologies does not cover respective investment cost differentials, and we derive evidence on how combined subsidies and information can induce these users to opt out of fossil technologies.