Final Report Summary - TREUEVALUE (TRans-national EUropean Ecosystem VALUEs of grasslands)
Introduction and justification
The ecosystem services approach is emerging as the dominant framework within which policies targeted at halting the degradation of the natural environment are developed. However, managing for multiple services across the same landscape is a major challenge, especially as enhancing provisioning services, such as food or timber production, is unlikely to be compatible with maintaining biodiverse landscapes with high cultural value. Successfully achieving an appropriate balance between these conflicting aims will, to a certain extent, depend on the values people attribute to differing ecosystem services and biodiversity. This fellowship addressed how the willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service enhancement and biodiversity conservation varied across the EU. The objectives of the grant were: (1) How does WTP for enhancements to biodiversity trade off in relation to values for other ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, food production or maintaining cultural landscapes? (2) To what extent is variation in WTP related to national socio-economic and cultural characteristics? (3) How does WTP alter between the member states of the EU? (4) Is there a significant trans-national WTP for biodiversity conservation? Our findings are directly relevant to policy and decision makers involved in designing environmental management and conservation schemes that involve many international partners, both within the EU and internationally.
Methods
We quantified the values that the public place on biodiversity and ecosystem services delivered across international boundaries, as opposed to within their country of residence. To do this we made use of the stated preference technique of the choice experiment (CE). The methodology is based on probabilistic choice where individuals are assumed to choose a single alternative which maximizes their utility from a set of available alternatives. CEs involve presenting participants with a number of choice sets consisting of two or more alternatives from which their preferred option is chosen. Each choice is described by various levels of a set of attributes, including a monetary cost which would finance changes in attribute levels, and which allows the estimation of WTP.
We used semi-natural grasslands in northern Europe, a study system for which such an analysis is particularly pertinent not least because environmental policy delivered within member states of the European Union (EU) has a strong trans-national component. Further, semi-natural grasslands have historically been subject to huge losses in extent and quality. Grasslands in general are rarely the subject of non-market valuation exercises, despite delivering a wide range of ecosystem services. Three such services are: enhanced carbon capture as a mitigation for climate change, biodiversity and habitat conservation and the maintenance of aesthetic, cultural landscapes.
Our study system included the full range of international cultural differences found in this region. We included a western European nation (Denmark), a former communist country (Poland) and a former constituent part of the Soviet Union (Estonia). Within these countries we carried out field visits, used a GIS and obtained expert local opinion to select regions which were similar in terms of topography, area, habitat type and degree of the number and extent of designations under the EU Habitats Directive. By matching sites closely we ensured our CE solely describes trans-national effects on the values people ascribe to the sites.
To estimate measures of economic benefit from changes in the ecosystem services listed above, a cost attribute was included in the design. Choices would then show how much people are willing to trade off improvements in an ecosystem service for a decrease in their income. Each nationality was presented with costs in their local currency, with the amounts purchasing power parity corrected to be equivalent in value.
An optimal design for the CE was generated by minimising d-error, this resulted in a CE consisting of 12 choice cards, divided into two blocks. Each respondent therefore faced six choice sets which asked them to choose between four alternatives. The questionnaire was initially developed in English and translated by native speakers into the relevant local languages. Focus groups and a pilot exercise were used to ensure translations were understandable to the general population, and to test the structure and meaning of the CE and associated attitudinal and socio-demographic questions. Commercial polling companies were used to deliver the survey to an online panel of respondents. After data collection and cleaning, the final sample size was 2367 respondents (approximately 800 per country; representative of national population according to age, gender, education, employment), who answered 14202 choice cards. Analyses were conducted in NLOGIT software using a mixed logit specification with an error component model.
Results and Discussion
Our results have proven both illustrative and robust.
Analyses and publication of our results are ongoing, which means there is still some modelling dependent variation in the exact sizes of WTP. However, the qualitative conclusions are already sufficiently certain and robust be summarised. Highlights which are particularly pertinent to policy-makers and/or academic researchers are given below:
- Respondents of all three nationalities expressed a positive and significant WTP for grassland management that enhances environmental values and ecosystem services, such as biodiversity and habitat conservation, cultural landscape preservation and carbon capture
- Irrespective of where such ecosystem services are to be delivered, people, from all three nationalities, tend to be willing to pay more for additional land being targeted towards biodiversity and habitat conservation than landscape preservation or carbon capture.
- In all countries, respondents expressed clear preferences for where management actions should take place, namely in their home country.
- They were willing to pay for similar efforts in other countries, but in general would be willing to pay more for the same actions undertaken in their home country.
- The emphasis on service provision in the respondents’ home country was particular strong for biodiversity and habitat conservation, and cultural landscape preservation; perhaps reflecting the local nature of these public goods. The home country preference was less pronounced for carbon capture.
- Cultural heritage, shared values and experiences can affect values for public goods. Respondents in Denmark, Poland and Estonia were WTP significantly different amounts for management to enhance ecosystem services, suggesting that nationality and international borders were important determinants of value.
- Further, when faced with a choice between management for biodiversity conservation and two other services, respondents consistently placed higher values on biodiversity, indicating that it should retain a prominent role in environmental management and policy.
The ecosystem services approach is emerging as the dominant framework within which policies targeted at halting the degradation of the natural environment are developed. However, managing for multiple services across the same landscape is a major challenge, especially as enhancing provisioning services, such as food or timber production, is unlikely to be compatible with maintaining biodiverse landscapes with high cultural value. Successfully achieving an appropriate balance between these conflicting aims will, to a certain extent, depend on the values people attribute to differing ecosystem services and biodiversity. This fellowship addressed how the willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service enhancement and biodiversity conservation varied across the EU. The objectives of the grant were: (1) How does WTP for enhancements to biodiversity trade off in relation to values for other ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, food production or maintaining cultural landscapes? (2) To what extent is variation in WTP related to national socio-economic and cultural characteristics? (3) How does WTP alter between the member states of the EU? (4) Is there a significant trans-national WTP for biodiversity conservation? Our findings are directly relevant to policy and decision makers involved in designing environmental management and conservation schemes that involve many international partners, both within the EU and internationally.
Methods
We quantified the values that the public place on biodiversity and ecosystem services delivered across international boundaries, as opposed to within their country of residence. To do this we made use of the stated preference technique of the choice experiment (CE). The methodology is based on probabilistic choice where individuals are assumed to choose a single alternative which maximizes their utility from a set of available alternatives. CEs involve presenting participants with a number of choice sets consisting of two or more alternatives from which their preferred option is chosen. Each choice is described by various levels of a set of attributes, including a monetary cost which would finance changes in attribute levels, and which allows the estimation of WTP.
We used semi-natural grasslands in northern Europe, a study system for which such an analysis is particularly pertinent not least because environmental policy delivered within member states of the European Union (EU) has a strong trans-national component. Further, semi-natural grasslands have historically been subject to huge losses in extent and quality. Grasslands in general are rarely the subject of non-market valuation exercises, despite delivering a wide range of ecosystem services. Three such services are: enhanced carbon capture as a mitigation for climate change, biodiversity and habitat conservation and the maintenance of aesthetic, cultural landscapes.
Our study system included the full range of international cultural differences found in this region. We included a western European nation (Denmark), a former communist country (Poland) and a former constituent part of the Soviet Union (Estonia). Within these countries we carried out field visits, used a GIS and obtained expert local opinion to select regions which were similar in terms of topography, area, habitat type and degree of the number and extent of designations under the EU Habitats Directive. By matching sites closely we ensured our CE solely describes trans-national effects on the values people ascribe to the sites.
To estimate measures of economic benefit from changes in the ecosystem services listed above, a cost attribute was included in the design. Choices would then show how much people are willing to trade off improvements in an ecosystem service for a decrease in their income. Each nationality was presented with costs in their local currency, with the amounts purchasing power parity corrected to be equivalent in value.
An optimal design for the CE was generated by minimising d-error, this resulted in a CE consisting of 12 choice cards, divided into two blocks. Each respondent therefore faced six choice sets which asked them to choose between four alternatives. The questionnaire was initially developed in English and translated by native speakers into the relevant local languages. Focus groups and a pilot exercise were used to ensure translations were understandable to the general population, and to test the structure and meaning of the CE and associated attitudinal and socio-demographic questions. Commercial polling companies were used to deliver the survey to an online panel of respondents. After data collection and cleaning, the final sample size was 2367 respondents (approximately 800 per country; representative of national population according to age, gender, education, employment), who answered 14202 choice cards. Analyses were conducted in NLOGIT software using a mixed logit specification with an error component model.
Results and Discussion
Our results have proven both illustrative and robust.
Analyses and publication of our results are ongoing, which means there is still some modelling dependent variation in the exact sizes of WTP. However, the qualitative conclusions are already sufficiently certain and robust be summarised. Highlights which are particularly pertinent to policy-makers and/or academic researchers are given below:
- Respondents of all three nationalities expressed a positive and significant WTP for grassland management that enhances environmental values and ecosystem services, such as biodiversity and habitat conservation, cultural landscape preservation and carbon capture
- Irrespective of where such ecosystem services are to be delivered, people, from all three nationalities, tend to be willing to pay more for additional land being targeted towards biodiversity and habitat conservation than landscape preservation or carbon capture.
- In all countries, respondents expressed clear preferences for where management actions should take place, namely in their home country.
- They were willing to pay for similar efforts in other countries, but in general would be willing to pay more for the same actions undertaken in their home country.
- The emphasis on service provision in the respondents’ home country was particular strong for biodiversity and habitat conservation, and cultural landscape preservation; perhaps reflecting the local nature of these public goods. The home country preference was less pronounced for carbon capture.
- Cultural heritage, shared values and experiences can affect values for public goods. Respondents in Denmark, Poland and Estonia were WTP significantly different amounts for management to enhance ecosystem services, suggesting that nationality and international borders were important determinants of value.
- Further, when faced with a choice between management for biodiversity conservation and two other services, respondents consistently placed higher values on biodiversity, indicating that it should retain a prominent role in environmental management and policy.