Willingness to Pay - Essay Example

WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION Environmental conservation as a practice aimed atprotecting natural environment is increasingly being observed as a shared responsibility by individual persons, the government as well as trading organizations. Degradation to the environment has been the main source of the concern to have environment being conserved for the well-being of not only human beings but also from the good of all other living organisms. In a study to evaluate the ‘willingness to pay’ for conservation of the environment, Han and team (2010) undertook a valuation study of the Kansas nature reserve in China.

The contingent valuation methodology was adopted in drafting the questionnaires that were used in collecting the data to be used in the analysis. An approximate 72% of all the participants who responded to the questionnaires indicated willingness to pay for the conservation though at varying levels. This therefore pointed out that the public in many instances are willing to contribute towards the improvement of the quality of the environment. The study employed use of logistic regression procedures in comparison of the persons who were willing and not willing to contribute actively in improving the environmental quality.

Through the contingent valuation analysis, the use value as well as non-use value of natural resources and environmental quality can be established. This method therefore involves a hypothetical scene to establish the willingness to pay of individuals on such natural resources and quality of environment. Hypothetical case studies are often used in such a situation where after describing such a case to the respondent, he/she is then expected to quote the amount of money he/she would be willing to pay for the environmental quality.

Reasons expressed for willingness to pay would therefore form the basis of policymaking especially as regards to legislation on environmental conservation and management. In often cases such as was revealed through the case study, non-use values like existence value were cited most as reasons why many people would be willing to pay for conserving natural environment or such a natural park. This study therefore shows that valuation of gains from natural resources and environment would contribute greatly towards efforts and willingness of people to pay for such conservations.

ReferenceHan, F., Yang, Z., Wang, H., & Xu, X. (2011). Estimating willingness to pay for environment conservation: A contingent valuation study of kanas nature reserve, xinjiang, china. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 180(1-4), 451-9. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/business/docview/880344284/fulltextPDF/11CE571EB3594F03PQ/12?accountid=45049