Abstract
Abandonment of traditional farming practices, such as hay-making and pasturing, has resulted in rapid loss of open wet grassland habitats in Europe. The globally threatened Aquatic Warbler (Acrocephalus paludicola L.) is a bird species that occurs almost exclusively in open fen mires, which have virtually disappeared in Western Europe, but still persist locally in Eastern Europe. Focusing on the world’s most important breeding site for Aquatic Warbler, the Zvaniec fen mire in Belarus, we estimated Belarusian citizens’ willingness-to-pay for adequate conservation management of this fen mire and its focal species the Aquatic Warbler. Results from a discrete choice experiment indicated that Belarusian citizens were willing to pay for appropriate conservation programmes of the Zvaniec fen mire. Scything and mechanical mowing were preferred compared to controlled burning, and especially over herbicide treatment of encroaching shrubs. Conservation management was preferred over legal protection of wetland areas without management. Respondents considered such passive conservation to be insufficient to maintain open fen mire habitat and gave a higher priority to active conservation management programmes. These preferences are consistent with evidence-based knowledge about what is effective conservation management for the Aquatic Warbler. Given the gradual disappearance of Europe’s traditional cultural landscapes, we discuss the challenge to fund the maintenance of this biocultural biodiversity legacy.
Highlights
Intensification of agriculture and forestry, and expansion of transport infrastructure have drastically intensified land management in Western Europe (e.g. Angelstam et al 2004, 2017; Donald et al 2006).This has led to alteration, fragmentation and loss of a wide range of habitats (Fahrig 2003), which cause decline in biological diversity
Since the MMNL model gives significantly a better fit to the data than the multinomial logit (MNL) model, we focus our attention here on WTP estimates obtained for the MMNL model only, whilst the WTP values for the MNL model are left as the reference level
Our results show that people in Belarus derive positive and significant economic benefits from fen mires conservation
Summary
Intensification of agriculture and forestry, and expansion of transport infrastructure have drastically intensified land management in Western Europe (e.g. Angelstam et al 2004, 2017; Donald et al 2006) This has led to alteration, fragmentation and loss of a wide range of habitats (Fahrig 2003), which cause decline in biological diversity. Both natural wetlands and wet grasslands of cultural origin in Western Europe are good examples of this process (Thorup 2005; Schekkerman et al 2008; Roodbergen et al 2011; Manton 2016; Manton and Angelstam 2018). Modification of traditional farming practices, drainage and altered hydrological regimes, climate change, and increased predators pressure have been put forward as factors contributing to the decline in wetland bird populations (Gill et al 2007; Isaksson et al 2007; Schekkerman et al 2008; Teunissen et al 2008; Roodbergen et al 2011; Manton 2016)
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