Publisher :
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2009
Thematic : TEEB
Language : English
Note
Marine Parks are established to protect an area of the sea zoned as a sanctuary for
the protection of its marine eco-systems, especially coral reefs and its associated
fauna and flora, like sea grass beds, mangroves and the sea shores. In Malaysia,
there are 6 marine parks to-date. Ironically, the establishment of marine parks also
attracts more tourists to the areas. For example, the number of visitors to Payar
Marine Park increased tremendously from 3,668 visitors in 1990 to 133,775 visitors
in 2002. Environmentalists and scientists have voiced concern that too many tourists
have adverse effects on the coral reefs.
This study estimates how much visitors are willing to pay for two separate issues;
first, to reduce the damages due to crowding effect and second, to reduce the
damages due to inland development, of three marine parks in Malaysia; Payar,
Redang and Tioman Marine Park. The willingness-to-pay estimates were obtained
from the respondents using the Contingent Valuation Method. A total of 650
questionnaires were distributed to the respondents. Then, half of the total
respondents were asked to answer the crowding effect issue, and the other half was
asked the inland development issue. For the crowding effect issue the respondents
were presented with a hypothetical situation in which the park authority wanted to
reduce the damage to the corals by limiting the number of visitors to half the
number who came in 2000. The reduction in the total number of visitors is to be
achieved by imposing an increased entrance fee. For the inland development issue,
an increase in the entrance fee is intended for the authority to hire more people to
monitor and enforce rules, to treat sewage and to implement coastal zone
management and planning. Estimation was done using the double-bounded
dichotomous choice method.
The willingness to pay (WTP) per person per visit to moderate the environmental
impact of inland development is RM23.79, which is lower than the WTP to reduce
crowding, RM31.59. In addition, when both data were combined to estimate the
differences between the WTP of foreign and local visitors, we found that the WTP
of foreign visitors was much higher than the WTP of locals at RM39.11 and
RM19.52, respectively. Analyses using the Individual Travel Cost Method gave
quite poor results since two thirds of the visitors were first-timers. Therefore,
consumer surplus cannot be obtained due to the insignificant result of the
respondent’s total spending on the number of trips. However, using the Zonal Travel
Cost Method (ZTCM), the average consumer surplus was found to be the same,
RM1,000 for each park. The ZTCM was also used to calculate the elasticity of
demand. The results for the three marine parks were found not to vary much,
ranging between 1.07 and 1.36.
Go to source
Keywords : predictive modelling
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
