Abstract
Valuation of ecosystem services (ESs) can be typical as use values and passive use values. However, the prevailing conventional markets provide economic instruments such as price tags to ecosystem use values, but rarely on passive use values. This is limited since it does not provide comprehensive ecological values that will adequately support rational decision-making processes regarding ecological conservation. The study adopted the contingency valuation method (CVM) where three hundred and eighty households of communities living within the Elgeyo watershed were sampled. The findings recorded 97% of the population was willing to pay for the ESs quoted. Individual maximum WTP ranged between 1 USD and 57.1 USD (cultural), 1 USD and 95.2 USD (bequest), and 1 USD and 76.2 USD (biodiversity conservation). The overall mean maximum WTP was 7.4 ± 0.34 USD, 9.1 ± 0.49 USD, and 11.1 ± 0.68 USD for the cultural, bequest, and biodiversity, respectively. The multivariate regression (maximum WTP as a function of administrative location, education, income, sex, age, and livestock number) exhibited a significant difference regardless of multivariate criteria used, where Wilks’ lambda has F (75,203) = 4.03,p<0.001. The findings provide an economic value for nonuse values that can be incorporated in total economic valuation (TEV) studies locally as well as provide an impetus on payment of ecosystem services (PES) in Kenya.
Highlights
Ecosystem services (ESs) are direct and indirect benefits that the nature provides to the society, fundamental to human welfare, with genuine economic development, which people value [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Albeit the local community appreciating the nonuse values the maximum Willingness to Pay (WTP) would be influenced by socioeconomic traits and the jurisdiction. ough the administrative location had a greater influence on the mean maximum significant difference, the study recorded socioeconomic parameters to influence the variance on the mean maximum WTP across the ESs. e socioeconomic traits examined included the household income, household size, sex, age of the respondent, land size, period lived, distance from the forest, and the tropical livestock unit (TLU)
There was significant variability in the monetary value quoted on the nonuse ecosystem benefits, the local community appreciates ecological conservation even though it does not necessarily benefit directly. is was evident from the majority (97%) of the population that was willing to pay even though such schemes would attract cost to the benefiting community when established. is is a reflection on the preference of the society to sustainably conserve the water catchment ecosystem as it believes to support human wellbeing both directly and indirectly. e findings agree with most literature that revealed that ecosystems have high economic value since the society believes it is critical on the socioeconomic agenda and livelihood [53,54,55,56,57]
Summary
Ecosystem services (ESs) are direct and indirect benefits that the nature provides to the society, fundamental to human welfare, with genuine economic development, which people value [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Valuation of ESs becomes essentially important to account for the benefit acquired from the nature and express and report in monetary terms the impact and cost of degrading our ecosystems and biodiversity [9]. Taking cognizance of the nature and benefits provided would be regarded as step one, but an estimation of ES worthiness more so in monetary terms would be more persuasive in decision making and, encourage the incorporation of the same in their decisions [9, 11]
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