Abstract
Considering that the economic valuation of ecosystem services is a useful approach to support the conservation of natural areas, we aimed to estimate the monetary value of the benefits provided by a protected area in southeast Brazil, the Serra do Cipó National Park. We calculated the visitor's willingness to pay to conserve the ecosystems of the protected area using the contingent valuation method. Located in a region under intense anthropogenic pressure, the Serra do Cipó National Park is mostly composed of rupestrian grassland ecosystems, in addition to other Cerrado physiognomies. We conducted a survey consisting of 514 interviews with visitors of the region and found that the mean willingness to pay was R$ 7.16 year-1, which corresponds to a total of approximately R$ 716,000.00 year-1. We detected that per capita income, the household size, the level of interest in environmental issues and the place of origin influenced the likelihood that individuals are willing to contribute to the conservation of the park, as well as the value of the stated willingness to pay. This study conveys the importance of conserving rupestrian grassland and other Cerrado physiognomies to decision makers and society.
Highlights
Human activities have dramatically impacted the planet’s environment, changing the functioning of most of the ecosystems and threatening the global biodiversity (Crutzen, 2002; Rockstrom et al, 2009)
One important approach based on ecosystem services is the use of economic valuation techniques, which translate the services provided by ecosystems into monetary values
We intended to answer the following questions: i) Considering the ecosystem services provided by the SCNP, what is the economic value that visitors of the Serra do Cipó are willing to pay annually to conserve the protected area? ii) What are the socioeconomic characteristics and level of environmental awareness exhibited by the visitors of the Serra do Cipó? iii) What are the factors that influence the answers related to the stated WTP by the respondent? we provide a brief analysis of the contingent valuation method (CVM) from the perspective of ecological economics and noted some methodological guidelines that may be helpful in overcoming the biases presented by this technique
Summary
Human activities have dramatically impacted the planet’s environment, changing the functioning of most of the ecosystems and threatening the global biodiversity (Crutzen, 2002; Rockstrom et al, 2009). Such disturbances have led to major impacts on ecosystem services, and on human well-being (Foley et al, 2005; MEA, 2005). In face of such environmental crisis, the ecosystem services emerged as a key concept in strategic planning and environmental policy, being able to incentive cross-disciplinary research and link natural, human and economic systems (Lele et al, 2014; Schroter et al, 2014). In many situations, the economic benefits arising from the maintenance of natural ecosystems can be higher than habitat conversion for the development of human activities (Balmford et al, 2002)
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