Threatened Bird Valuation in Australia

Threatened species programs need a social license to justify public funding. A contingent valuation survey of a broadly representative sample of the Australian public found that almost two thirds (63%) supported funding of threatened bird conservation. These included 45% of a sample of 645 respondents willing to pay into a fund for threatened bird conservation, 3% who already supported bird conservation in another form, and 15% who could not afford to pay into a conservation fund but who nevertheless thought that humans have a moral obligation to protect threatened birds. Only 6% explicitly opposed such payments. Respondents were willing to pay about AUD 11 annually into a conservation fund (median value), including those who would pay nothing. Highest values were offered by young or middle aged men, and those with knowledge of birds and those with an emotional response to encountering an endangered bird. However, the prospect of a bird going extinct alarmed almost everybody, even most of those inclined to put the interests of people ahead of birds and those who resent the way threatened species sometimes hold up development. The results suggest that funding for threatened birds has widespread popular support among the Australian population. Conservatively they would be willing to pay about AUD 14 million per year, and realistically about AUD 70 million, which is substantially more than the AUD 10 million currently thought to be required to prevent Australian bird extinctions.

[1]  John B. Loomis,et al.  Alternative approaches for incorporating respondent uncertainty when estimating willingness to pay: the case of the Mexican spotted owl , 1998 .

[2]  J. Meyerhoff,et al.  Protest beliefs in contingent valuation: Explaining their motivation , 2006 .

[3]  A. Dragun,et al.  The Worth of a Possum: Valuing Species with the Contingent Valuation Method , 2001 .

[4]  S. Kellert.  3. Social and Perceptual Factors in the Preservation of Animal Species , 1988 .

[5]  G. Hvenegaard,et al.  Birder Specialization Differences in Conservation Involvement, Demographics, and Motivations , 2002 .

[6]  S. Garnett,et al.  The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2010 , 2011 .

[7]  John R. Stoll,et al.  Use of Dichotomous Choice Nonmarket Methods to Value the Whooping Crane Resource , 1988 .

[8]  E. Bulte,et al.  Marginal Valuation of Charismatic Species: Implications for Conservation , 1999 .

[9]  Matthew D. Johnson,et al.  Pest reduction services by birds in shade and sun coffee in Jamaica , 2010 .

[10]  C. Tisdell,et al.  How Knowledge Affects Payment to Conserve an Endangered Bird , 2006 .

[11]  K. McConnell,et al.  Valuing Environmental and Natural Resources , 2002 .

[12]  I. Bateman,et al.  Multivariate Mixed Models for Open-Ended Contingent Valuation Data: Willingness To Pay For Conservation of Monk Seals , 1998 .

[13]  N. Hanley,et al.  The "Crex crex" Lament: Estimating Landowners Willingness to Pay for Corncrake Conservation on Irish Farmland , 2009 .

[14]  Dennis Child,et al.  The essentials of factor analysis , 1970 .

[15]  A. Balmford,et al.  The Costs and Effectiveness of Funding the Conservation of Australian Threatened Birds , 2003 .

[16]  Maria L. Loureiro,et al.  Valuing local endangered species: The role of intra-species substitutes , 2008 .

[17]  C. Thompson,et al.  Optimal investment in conservation of species , 2008 .

[18]  R. Likert.  “Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes, A” , 2022, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[19]  A. Manica,et al.  A Global Perspective on Trends in Nature-Based Tourism , 2009, PLoS biology.

[20]  R. Maloney,et al.  Financial Costs of Meeting Global Biodiversity Conservation Targets: Current Spending and Unmet Needs , 2012, Science.

[21]  V. Geist,et al.  The role of hunting in North American wildlife conservation , 2013 .

[22]  W. Michael Hanemann,et al.  Welfare Evaluations in Contingent Valuation Experiments with Discrete Responses , 1984 .

[23]  Terry L. Shaffer,et al.  Valuing ecosystem and economic services across land-use scenarios in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Dakotas, USA , 2011 .

[24]  C. Tisdell,et al.  Knowledge of birds and willingness to support their conservation: an Australian case study , 2005, Bird Conservation International.

[25]  K. Zander,et al.  Wild and valuable? Tourist values for orang-utan conservation in Sarawak. , 2014 .

[26]  M. Johannesson.  The Contingent-valuation Method , 1993, Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making.

[27]  Zhishi Wang,et al.  Valuing black-faced spoonbill conservation in Macao: A policy and contingent valuation study , 2008 .

[28]  Søren Bøye Olsen,et al.  Choosing Between Internet and Mail Survey Modes for Choice Experiment Surveys Considering Non-Market Goods , 2009 .

[29]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  The value of species rarity in biodiversity recreation: A birdwatching example , 2011 .

[30]  J. Bennett,et al.  Minimising Payment Vehicle Bias in Contingent Valuation Studies , 2000 .

[31]  R. Carson,et al.  Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone , 1994 .

[32]  Robert Cameron Mitchell,et al.  Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method , 1989 .

[33]  B. McFarlane,et al.  SPECIALIZATION AND MOTIVATIONS OF BIRDWATCHERS , 1994 .

[34]  Anna Alberini,et al.  Handbook on Contingent Valuation , 2009 .

[35]  Christopher M. Fleming,et al.  Web-based surveys as an alternative to traditional mail methods. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[36]  John B. Loomis,et al.  Economic benefits of rare and endangered species: summary and meta-analysis , 1996 .

[37]  Matthew D. Johnson,et al.  The Need to Quantify Ecosystem Services Provided By Birds , 2011 .

[38]  D. Osgood,et al.  Examining Trends in Adolescent Environmental Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors Across Three Decades , 2010, Environment and behavior.

[39]  R. Brouwer,et al.  The impact of the bird flu on public willingness to pay for the protection of migratory birds , 2008 .

[40]  C. AḠAN H. S. EKERCI,et al.  Impacts of birdwatching on human and avian communities , 2022 .

[41]  K. Zander,et al.  Assessing the total economic value of threatened livestock breeds in Italy: Implications for conservation policy , 2013 .

[42]  S. Garnett.  The Action Plan for Australian Birds , 1992 .

[43]  Ian J. Bateman,et al.  Valuing Environmental Preferences: Theory and Practice of the Contingent Valuation Method in the US, EU, and developing Countries , 2001 .

[44]  G. Helfand,et al.  A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Northern Spotted Owl , 1991, Journal of Forestry.

[45]  S. Navrud,et al.  Are Internet Surveys an Alternative to Face-to Face Interviews in Contingent Valuation? , 2011 .

[46]  J. Loehlin.  Latent variable models , 1987 .

[47]  I. Krinsky,et al.  On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities , 1986 .

[48]  Holmes Rolston.  Value in Nature and the Nature of Value , 1994 .

[49]  Shannon K. Gilmartin,et al.  Assessing Response Rates and Nonresponse Bias in Web and Paper Surveys , 2003 .

[50]  W. Michael Hanemann,et al.  THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF DISCRETE-RESPONSE CV DATA , 1996 .

[51]  Ian J. Bateman,et al.  Economic Valuation With Stated Preference Techniques , 2002 .

[52]  Jürgen Meyerhoff,et al.  Valuing the benefits of implementing a national strategy on biological diversity—The case of Germany , 2012 .

[53]  C Loehlin John,et al.  Latent variable models: an introduction to factor, path, and structural analysis , 1986 .

[54]  Matthew J. Kotchen,et al.  Random effects analysis , 2003 .

[55]  Clive L. Spash,et al.  Multiple Value Expression in Contingent Valuation: Economics and Ethics† , 2000 .

[56]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Economic Valuation of Biodiversity Conservation: the Meaning of Numbers , 2008, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[57]  Timothy C. Haab,et al.  Valuing Environmental and Natural Resources: The Econometrics of Non-Market Valuation , 2002 .

[58]  Rick Baker,et al.  Environmental Policy Analysis: A Guide to Non‑Market Valuation , 2014 .

[59]  V. Kerry Smith.  Fifty Years of Contingent Valuation , 2006 .

[60]  Maria L. Loureiro,et al.  Altruistic, egoistic and biospheric values in willingness to pay (WTP) for wildlife , 2007 .

[61]  G. Parsons,et al.  The Economic Value of Viewing Migratory Shorebirds on the Delaware Bay: An Application of the Single Site Travel Cost Model Using On-Site Data , 2011 .

[62]  Bryan G. Norton,et al.  The Preservation of Species , 1986 .