To what extent do potential conservation donors value community-aspects of conservation projects in low income countries?

Amy R Lewis,James M Gibbons,Julia P G Jones,Richard P Young,Daniel C Miller

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0192935

Abstract

There is a major gap in funding required for conservation, especially in low income countries. Given the significant contribution of taxpayers in industrialized countries to funding conservation overseas, and donations from membership organisation, understanding the preferences of ordinary people in a high income country for different attributes of conservation projects is valuable for future marketing of conservation. We conducted a discrete choice experiment with visitors to a UK zoo, while simultaneously conducting a revealed preference study through a real donation campaign on the same sample. Respondents showed the highest willingness to pay for projects that have local community involvement in management (95% confidence interval £9.82 to £15.83), and for improvement in threatened species populations (£2.97 - £13.87). Both of these were significantly larger than the willingness to pay for projects involving provision of alternative livelihoods, or improving the condition of conservation sites. Results of the simultaneous donation campaign showed that respondents were very willing to donate the suggested £1 or above donation (88% made a donation, n = 1798); there was no effect of which of the two campaigns they were exposed to (threatened species management or community involvement in management). The small number of people who did not make a donation had a higher stated willingness to pay within the choice experiment, which may suggest hypothetical bias. Conservationists increasingly argue that conservation should include local communities in management (for both pragmatic and moral reasons). It is heartening that potential conservation donors seem to agree.

Highlights

For the last few decades it has been widely recognised that conservation, while having national and global benefits, frequently brings local costs [1,2]
The remaining attributes are of the positive and are all highly significant at the 1% level suggesting a focus on threatened species populations, community involvement in management, condition of conservation sites and alternative livelihood investment are all valued as part of a conservation project by donors
Understanding what potential donors value in a conservation project is necessary to improve the marketing of conservation projects to attract funding, while revealing insights into

Summary

Introduction

For the last few decades it has been widely recognised that conservation, while having national and global benefits, frequently brings local costs [1,2]. Community conservation and potential donors should invest in human development alongside species and habitat based actions [4,5,6]. Every year the world spends around US$126 billion of official aid addressing global poverty and between US $8–16 billion addressing biodiversity loss [10,11], where there remains substantial unmet need [12]. Funding for biodiversity in developing countries include: domestic budget allocations (~US$11 billion); multilateral and bilateral aid (~US$4 billion); and philanthropy (including charitable trusts and conservation NGO funding, ~US$0.5–1 billion) [13]. Understanding the preferences of donors for these different aspects of conservation projects such as involvement of local communities in management and decision making or providing alternative livelihoods, could help target and improve future marketing campaigns

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Conclusion