Abstract
This study seeks to estimate household’s willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation in Dachigam National Park, which houses the last viable population of Asiatic Black Bear and the Hangul (which is the only surviving sub-species of red deer in the world). A survey based on choice experiment method was carried out at Dachigam National Park, an area that is threatened by several anthropogenic pressures. A set of attributes, such as endangered species, national park area and research and education opportunities the park holds, have been selected to substantiate the analysis. In order to estimate willingness to pay (WTP), a monetary variable involving an increase in water rates was also incorporated. Willingness to pay for the selected attributes per household ranges from Rs. 109.48 to Rs. 138.48 for enhancing population of endangered species, Rs. 48.54 to Rs. 82.36 for improvement in park area and Rs. 67.21 to Rs. 101.35 for increasing research and education opportunities the park holds. Findings that the study present can be used as an indicator of economic importance of biological resources for their better management and conservation that can help in ensuring sustainable utilization of these natural resources.
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Notes
Economic valuation of biodiversity refers to the assessment of benefits (economic, social, cultural, educational, and medicinal) and its contributions in sustainable human well-being with equitable distribution principles.
In 2018, around 26, 840 species were threatened out of the 96, 951 total assessed species. Changes in number of species assessed and species assessed as threatened year on year basis shows that the number of species assessed in 2018 has increased by 5.93% whereas at the same time species assessed as threatened increased by 3.95% (The citation “IUCN, 2019” has been changed to “IUCN, 2020” to match the author name/date in the reference list. Please check if the change is fine in this occurrence and modify the subsequent occurrences, if necessary.IUCN 2020).
The popular destinations which surround the DNP are the famous Mugal gardens such as Nishat, Shalimar, Dal Lake, Botanical Garden, Tulip Garden, Cheshma Shahi among others.
Dal Lake is a Himalayan urban Lake located in district Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
Yea-saying bias or payment vehicle bias
Orthogonal design was used in the present case.
The results were obtained using STATA version 12
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the enumerators and supervisor for the consistent work during the survey. A special thanks are due to the officer in charge and staff of Dachigam National Park for their kind support during the data collection. We thank two anonymous referees and the editor for their suggestions which have improved the paper significantly. Usual disclaimers apply.
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Bhat, M.Y., Bhatt, M.S. & Sofi, A.A. Valuing biodiversity attributes: a choice experiment design. Environ Monit Assess 192, 499 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08420-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08420-0