Assessing Tourists’ Preferences of Negative Externalities of Environmental Management Programs: A Case Study on Invasive Species in Shei-Pa National Park, Taiwan

Tzu-Ming Liu,Chia-Mei Tien

doi:10.3390/su11102953

Abstract

This study uses discrete choice experiments to evaluate and reduce the environmental impact of negative externalities of managing invasive alien species (IAS), such as “ecological shock”, “health risk”, “waiting time” “tour range” and “prevention and control fee”, on the support of IAS prevention and control. We used data from Taiwan’s Shei-Pa National Park and its visitors for the case study and obtained 602 valid questionnaires. The results indicate that visitors consider that each unit of externality of IAS prevention and control measures significantly reduces their utility, and the magnitude equals the estimated value of externality. However, although negative externalities are inevitable, the support for IAS prevention and control measures could be maximized by adjusting the types and proportions of negative externalities. For example, visitors are willing to sacrifice up to 1.41% of the tour range in exchange for a 1% reduction in ecological shock. This study summarizes the negative externalities of IAS prevention and control measures and proposes to adjust the combination of negative externalities to reduce the shocks of those IAS prevention and control measures on the public, so as to increase the public support for IAS policies and increase the sustainability of tourism.

Highlights

National parks (NPs) bear the important responsibility of protecting key eco-environments and landscapes and must meet the needs of public sightseeing and recreation
Based on the results of the focus groups and literature review, and considering the characteristics of the Shei-Pa NP, we summarize four negative externalities of the invasive alien species (IAS) prevention and control measures for visitors of NPs, including “the intensity of the impact of the prevention and control on the ecosystem”, “recreational or visiting range reduced by those measures”, “the possibility that visitors’ health is negatively affected by the measures”, and “waiting time of visitors caused by the implementation of the measures”
Using Formula (4), we calculate the willingness to pay of visitors for the negative externalities of IAS prevention and control measures (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

National parks (NPs) bear the important responsibility of protecting key eco-environments and landscapes and must meet the needs of public sightseeing and recreation. Because IASs can spread by attaching themselves to the human body, clothing, vehicles, and recreational equipment, the greater that the number of tourists who visit NPs is, the greater the probability that the NPs will be impacted and the higher the severity of the impact [2,3,4,5,6]. Once it enters an NP, an IAS may change the characteristics of the park ecosystem, compete with local species for food, cause local species to disappear, and change the landscape. IAS prevention and control is regarded as the largest challenge facing NP management [7,8]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion