Daniel K. Lew

Public willingness to pay for recovering and downlisting threatened and endangered marine species.

Nonmarket valuation research has produced economic value estimates for a variety of threatened, endangered, and rare species around the world. Although over 40 value estimates exist, it is often difficult to compare values from different studies due to variations in study design, implementation, and modeling specifications. We conducted a stated-preference choice experiment to estimate the value of recovering or downlisting 8 threatened and endangered marine species in the United States: loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta), leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica), upper Willamette River Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Puget Sound Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Hawaiian monk seals (Monachus schauinslandi), and smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata). In May 2009, we surveyed a random sample of U.S. households. We collected data from 8476 households and estimated willingness to pay for recovering and downlisting the 8 species from these data. Respondents were willing to pay for recovering and downlisting threatened and endangered marine taxa. Willingness-to-pay values ranged from

Multiscale Spatial Pattern in Nonuse Willingness to Pay: Applications to Threatened and Endangered Marine Species

40/household for recovering Puget Sound Chinook salmon to

Are environmental attitudes influenced by survey context? An investigation of the context dependency of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale.

73/household for recovering the North Pacific right whale. Statistical comparisons among willingness-to-pay values suggest that some taxa are more economically valuable than others, which suggests that the U.S. publics willingness to pay for recovery may vary by species.

Willingness to pay for threatened and endangered marine species: a review of the literature and prospects for policy use

This paper demonstrates methods that may be combined to characterize otherwise undetectable spatial heterogeneity in stated preference willingness to pay (WTP) estimates that may occur at multiple geospatial scales. These include methods applicable to large-scale analysis with diffuse policy impacts and uncertainty regarding the appropriate scales over which spatial patterns should be evaluated. Illustrated methods include spatial interpolation and multiscale analysis of hot/cold spots using local indicators of spatial association. An application to threatened and endangered marine species illustrates the empirical findings that emerge. Findings include large-scale clustering of nonuse WTP estimates at multiple scales of analysis. (JEL D61, Q51)

The importance of survey content: Testing for the context dependency of the New Ecological Paradigm Scale

General environmental attitudes are often measured with questions added to surveys about specific environmental or non-environmental issues. Using results from a large-scale national survey on the protection of threatened and endangered marine species, we examine whether the context of the survey in which New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale items are asked influence measured environmental concern. In this application the role that specific threatened or endangered species play in affecting responses to NEP Scale items is explored using a combination of non-parametric and parametric approaches. The results in this case suggest that context does influence stated general environmental attitudes, though the effects of context differ across NEP items.

A comparison of regional and national values for recovering threatened and endangered marine species in the United States

Non-market valuation methods have been employed to estimate willingness to pay for numerous threatened, endangered, and rare (TER) species over the past few decades. While most of these efforts have focused on terrestrial species, over 30 published studies have been conducted to measure economic values associated with the preservation, protection, and enhancement of scores of marine species. In this paper, this literature is reviewed and assessed, and an evaluation of the suitability of existing TER species values as inputs for the analysis of marine and coastal policies, and the prospects and challenges for improving them, are discussed. The published literature is found to suffer from coverage issues, both geographical and in terms of species types. It includes stated preference valuation studies focused on marine species only in developed countries (United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Spain, and Greece), with the highest concentration of studies occurring in the United States. The species valued primarily can be classified as charismatic megafauna—seals and sea lions, whales, and sea turtles—plus well-known fish species, like salmon. Only a small handful of lesser known species are included among those valued to date. Species value estimates were as much as

Public preferences for endangered species recovery: an examination of geospatial scale and non-market values

356 (2013 U.S. dollars), but differed in the frequency of payments (e.g., lump sum vs. annual), the entity paying (e.g., household, resident, or visitor), and the specific good being valued (e.g., species preservation or a type of enhancement). Potential sources of errors arising from the use of these values for policy analyses, and the temporal stability of them, provide reasons to be cautious in their application. Nevertheless, several trends in the literature appear to provide reasons to be optimistic about the literature, particularly the recent expansion of types of species valued and more policy-relevant values.

Factors Influencing Willingness to Donate to Marine Endangered Species Recovery in the Galapagos National Park, Ecuador

Using a regression-based analysis of a survey of U.S. households, we demonstrate that both environmental concern, as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale, and facets of environmental concern, as measured by three NEP factors, are influenced by survey context. Survey respondents were presented with detailed information about two to four threatened and endangered marine species in the United States, including the Endangered Species Act listing status of the species and threats to the survival of the species. All else being equal, measures of environmental concern are influenced by both which species were included in the survey and by the concern expressed about these species. As such, measures of environmental concern are found to be context dependent since they are correlated with the species included in each survey. We also demonstrate that NEP-based measures of environmental concern are affected by socio-demographic variables, opinions about government spending, and environmental knowledge. Given the wide, multi-disciplinary use of the NEP Scale, it is important for researchers to recognize that NEP-based measures of environmental concern may be sensitive to information included in surveys.

Fishing rights and small communities: Alaska halibut IFQ transfer patterns

It is generally acknowledged that willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for environmental goods exhibit some degree of spatial variation. In a policy context, spatial variation in threatened and endangered species values is important to understand, as the benefit stream from policies affecting threatened and endangered species may vary locally, regionally, or among certain population segments. In this paper we present WTP estimates for eight different threatened and endangered marine species estimated from a stated preference choice experiment. WTP is estimated at two different spatial scales: (a) a random sample of over 5000 U.S. households and (b) geographically embedded samples (relative to the U.S. household sample) of nine U.S. Census regions. We conduct region-to-region and region-to-nation statistical comparisons to determine whether species values differ among regions and between each region and the entire U.S. Our results show limited spatial variation between national values and values estimated from regionally embedded samples, and differences are only found for three of the eight species. More variation exists between regions, and for all species there is a significant difference in at least one region-to-region comparison. Given that policy analyses involving threatened and endangered marine species can often be regional in scope (e.g., ecosystem management) or may disparately affect different regions, our results should be of high interest to the marine management community.

Valuing improvements to threatened and endangered marine species: an application of stated preference choice experiments.

Non-market valuation allows society to express their preferences for goods and services whose economic value is not reflected in traditional markets. One issue that arises in applying non-market values in policy settings is defining the extent of the economic jurisdiction – the area that includes all people who hold values – for a good or service. In this paper we estimate non-market values for recovering eight threatened and endangered marine species in the US for two geographically embedded samples: households on the west coast of the US and households throughout the nation. We statistically compare species values between the two samples to help determine the extent of and variation in the economic jurisdiction for endangered species recovery. Our findings offer support to the tenet that the summation of non-market values across the country is appropriate when evaluating alternative policies for endangered species recovery.