Economic valuation of biodiversity: sense or nonsense?

Nunes, Paulo A.L.D.; Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. van den

doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(01)00233-6

Cited by 341 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…By varying the amount individuals are asked to pay among individual respondents, a social value of the outcome is constructed based on how WTP varies across respondents (Loomis 1990). Several factors can affect the WTP for wildlife conservation including the species usefulness to humans, likeability of species by humans, questionnaire design, information level of respondents and level of economic damage created by the species (Tisdell et al 2007, Bateman et al 2002, Nunes and van den Bergh 2001, Brown et al 1994, Martin--Lopez et al 2007a, 2007b.…”

Section: Contingent Valuation Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assignment of measurable costs and benefits to wildlife conservation projects

et al. 2013

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Success of biodiversity conservation projects is determined by a suite of biological and economic factors. Donor and public understanding of the economic factors is becoming increasingly central to the longevity of funding for conservation efforts. Unlike typical economic evaluation, many costs and benefits related to conservation efforts are realized in diverse and non--monetary terms. We identify the types of benefits and costs that are assigned to biodiversity projects and examine a number of well--developed and some new techniques that economists use to convert benefits and costs into monetary values so that they may be compared in a common metric. Commonly costs are more readily identified than benefits, with financial project costs the most frequently reported and to a much lesser extent, opportunity and damage costs. Additionally, costs have been recognized as being largely spatially dependent while benefits have not received this same distinction. Opportunity costs have been largely absent from many conservation project analyses likely overstating the returns to project investment. Most current evaluation methodologies focus mainly on costs and rely primarily on cost--effectiveness analysis more commonly than cost--benefit analysis, resulting from the difficultly in measuring benefits. Movement toward the measurement of the benefits and costs of conservation efforts is urged throughout most of the literature. Improvements to the determination of conservation project returns can be made through the incorporation of spatial considerations of economic impacts which includes regional economic analysis.

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Section: Contingent Valuation Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assignment of measurable costs and benefits to wildlife conservation projects

et al. 2013

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“…In this framework, ecosystems are regarded as important steering forces of human well-being insofar as they provide a wide range of goods and services to humans. The paradigm that underlies this welfare approach, and adopted in this paper, is that of the anthropocentric value perspective where ecosystems, and their provision of goods and services, are determined by the consumption opportunities that these provide to humans (see (Nunes and van den Bergh 2001).…”

Section: A Framework For the Classification Of Recreational Culturalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recreational, Cultural, and Aesthetic Services from Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems

Ghermandi

Nunes

Portela

et al. 2011

Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science

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SummaryThe role of economic analysis in guiding the sustainable development of estuarine and coastal ecosystems is investigated based on a comprehensive review of the literature on the valuation of the recreation, cultural and aesthetic services. The implications of the findings for the sustainable management of coral reefs, Marine Protected Areas, and Small Island Developing States are discussed. Finally, the potential of meta-analytical benefit transfer and scaling up of values at various aggregation levels is demonstrated in the context of coastal tourism and recreation in Europe. The results of the study support the conclusion that the non-material values provided by coastal and estuarine ecosystems in terms of recreational, cultural and aesthetic services represent a substantial component of human well-being. ABSTRACT: The role of economic analysis in guiding the sustainable development of estuarine and coastal ecosystems is investigated based on a comprehensive review

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“…This means that the value of MEBs is anchored in a human perspective and therefore interpreted as the result of an interaction between who attaches value (humans) and the object of valuation (flows of ecosystem goods and services). In other words, the economic valuation perspective subscribes an anthropocentric value orientation, thus rejecting the notion of intrinsic values -see Nunes and van den Bergh (2001). Secondly, humans elicit MEBs in terms of their impact on human welfare, including human knowledge, use, experience, and consumption of MEBs.…”

Section: General Features Of the Economic Valuation Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The Economic Valuation of Marine Ecosystems

2009

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SummaryIn a democratic system, policy makers have to take the preferences of the citizens into account. Since we live in a world with scarce resources, one is asked to make choices regarding the use and management of these resources. In this context, if policy makers decide to invest in the protection of marine ecosystems, less financial resources will be available for other policy areas, for example national health. Moreover, the investment in the protection of marine ecosystems brings along with it the provision of a wide range of benefits to humans though most are not priced in the existing markets -for example climate regulation and provision of habitat for biodiversity. Given that most human activities are priced in one way or other, in some decision contexts, the temptation exists to downplay or ignore these important marine ecosystem benefits on the basis of the non-existence of prices. The simple and simplistic idea in the minds of many policymakers is that a lack of prices is equivalent to a lack of values. Clearly, this is a biased perspective. Against this background, this paper explores the motivation for an economic valuation of this complex resource. The state-of-the-art economic valuation methodologies follow the guidelines proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, taking into account the existing scientific knowledge on the functioning of marine ecosystems, marine ecosystem goods and services and its impacts on human welfare. Finally, we critically review some economic valuation studies, arguing that the economic valuation of marine ecosystem services and biodiversity can make sense if and only if important guidelines are observed. Keywords February 2009Abstract In a democratic system, policy makers have to take the preferences of the citizens into account. Since we live in a world with scarce resources, one is asked to make choices regarding the use and management of these resources. In this context, if policy makers decide to invest in the protection of marine ecosystems, less financial resources will be available for other policy areas, for example national health. Moreover, the investment in the protection of marine ecosystems brings along with it the provision of a wide range of benefits to humans though most are not priced in the existing markets -for example climate regulation and provision of habitat for biodiversity. Given that most human activities are priced in one way or other, in some decision contexts, the temptation exists to downplay or ignore these important marine ecosystem benefits on the basis of the non-existence of prices. The simple and simplistic idea in the minds of many policymakers is that a lack of prices is equivalent to a lack of values. Clearly, this is a biased perspective. Against this background, this paper explores the motivation for an economic valuation of this complex resource. The state-of-theart economic valuation methodologies follow the guidelines proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, taking into account the existing scientific knowledg...

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Economic valuation of biodiversity: sense or nonsense?

Cited by 341 publications

References 51 publications

Assignment of measurable costs and benefits to wildlife conservation projects

Assignment of measurable costs and benefits to wildlife conservation projects

Recreational, Cultural, and Aesthetic Services from Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems

The Economic Valuation of Marine Ecosystems

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