Valuation of biodiversity protection across borders: Limits to the public good?

• The international coordination of conservation policy and management is widely expected to reduce costs and increase effectiveness. An underlying assumption is that biodiversity protection is a global public good and specifically that the value of biodiversity protection is independent of the geographical and political jurisdiction of provision. We investigate if comparable biodiversity protection measures and outcomes in two countries are indeed valued as a global public good by the population in those same two countries. Using a choice experiment (CE), the individuals' marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for comparable biodiversity protection measures and outcomes across country borders were estimated for locations in Denmark and in southern Sweden. We were able to distinguish an effect of nationality from distance by exploring the extent to which willingness to pay for policy alternatives was affected by the nationality of and the distance to the protection location. We found a clear effect of both. WTP decreased by 152 DKK/year for a forest ecosystem improvement policy implemented in a foreign rather than home country. In addition the cost of bridge tolls was estimated as -397DKK and transport -2 DKK/km broadly similar to the actual cost. This suggests that respondents view biodiversity protection measures and outcomes more as a local than a global public good. Our findings, if extendable to broader settings, suggest that the cost-effectiveness approach to international coordination of biodiversity protection is not likely to be optimal from a welfare economic point of view.

Subject headings

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Lantbruksvetenskap, skogsbruk och fiske -- Skogsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries -- Forest Science (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

ovr (subject category)