Community-based conservation programs and local people willingness to pay for wildlife protection: The case of the cotton-top tamarin in the Colombian Caribbean

Abstract

Community-Based Conservation programs (CBC) are designed on the assumption that local communities are crucial to the success of the conservation agenda. There is the expectation that, by providing benefits to the local people, they will support conservation because it is economically beneficial. This paper uses willingness to pay (WTP) for habitat preservation of the cotton-top tamarin in the Colombian Caribbean as a means to assess the effect of participation in a CBC program on the support for additional conservation. Using the contingent valuation method, we found that: First, households deriving income from conservation activities are more supportive of additional habitat preservation; second, participants and non-participants in the CBC program are equally sensitive to increments in the costs of conservation; and, third, the CBC program is not a burden for non-participant households.