Elsevier

Land Use Policy

Volume 34, September 2013, Pages 282-293
Land Use Policy

Public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation: A choice experiment using ecosystem services indicators

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.04.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We model public preference for land-use scenarios in the rural landscape.

  • Biodiversity conservation was the most preferred option on average.

  • The public wish to avoid the extinction of endangered species in preference to climate-change mitigation.

  • The awareness of ecosystem services had a significant effect on their preference.

  • The elicited-choice probabilities approach reveals relative preferences in the choice experiment.

Abstract

Potential conflicts exist between biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation as trade-offs in multiple-use land management. This study aims to evaluate public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation policy considering respondents’ uncertainty on their choice. We conducted a choice experiment using land-use scenarios in the rural Kushiro watershed in northern Japan. The results showed that the public strongly wish to avoid the extinction of endangered species in preference to climate-change mitigation in the form of carbon sequestration by increasing the area of managed forest. Knowledge of the site and the respondents’ awareness of the personal benefits associated with supporting and regulating services had a positive effect on their preference for conservation plans. Thus, decision-makers should be careful about how they provide ecological information for informed choices concerning ecosystem services tradeoffs. Suggesting targets with explicit indicators will affect public preferences, as well as the willingness of the public to pay for such measures. Furthermore, the elicited-choice probabilities approach is useful for revealing the distribution of relative preferences for incomplete scenarios, thus verifying the effectiveness of indicators introduced in the experiment.

Introduction

Land-use and cover changes have adverse impacts on biodiversity and related ecosystem services (ES) (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Recent studies have clearly revealed a decline in biodiversity globally, and threats and pressures on biodiversity have been increasing particularly over the past decade (TEEB, 2010). Holistic countermeasures against biodiversity loss are urgently needed, because despite policy and management responses at various scales, the rate of biodiversity loss is still not slowing (Butchart et al., 2010). Efforts to conserve biodiversity, therefore, need to be strengthened by such measures as integrating biodiversity conservation into decision-making for land management and implementing policies that address biodiversity loss.

Mitigation of climate change is also a pressing concern for both the conservation of existing ecosystems and biodiversity conservation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are key agreements adopted in the early 1990s. However, several land-use changes for climate-change mitigation potentially pose threats to biodiversity. For instance, converting diverse natural vegetation to monoculture plantations to capture greenhouse gas emissions may adversely affect biodiversity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2009). Therefore, concerns arise that there is potential conflict between these strategies and international agreements such as the CBD and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The need for options linking biodiversity conservation with climate-change mitigation has thus become urgent. However, no clear practical strategies have been suggested. This is because the degree of clarification and analysis of trade-offs remains insufficient to support decision-making about prospective policies (Phelps et al., 2012, Venter et al., 2009).

To solve the trade-offs in multiple-use land management, the concept of ES has been introduced to find synergies for biodiversity conservation and other aspects of human welfare improvements (Tallis et al., 2009). ES consist of provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. However, trade-offs potentially arise in land management choices that influence the provision of ES in a landscape. Some studies have revealed existing ‘spatial trade-offs’ of ES. In these studies, conflict between provisioning services and other services such as regulating and cultural services is often observed (Bennett and Balvanera, 2007, Bennett et al., 2009, Raudsepp-Hearne et al., 2010).

Intensive land management by excessive demand for provisioning services has often driven substantial losses in other services. ‘Temporal trade-offs’ are also often driven by specific short-term social demands for food or timber production (Rodríguez et al., 2006). Possible principal causes are the presence of negative environmental externalities, insufficient property rights, and lack of knowledge to maintain natural environments that provide supporting, regulating, and cultural services. Trade-offs within these services are considerable and can lead to conflict between climate-regulation and biodiversity-support services. Complicating the problem even more, the types and levels of trade-offs differ among stakeholders, who have varying opinions on the use of trade-offs and the contribution of trade-offs to their personal well-being (Braimoh et al., 2009). Awareness of ES among such stakeholders varies with their knowledge and perspectives (Poppenborg and Koellner, 2013, Prager et al., 2012, Hauck et al., 2013). Thus, in any effort to achieve sustainable land management, it is challenging to identify socially acceptable ways of making choices in the face of trade-offs and uncertainties in ES-based resource management. In addition, assessments need to incorporate the diversity of stakeholder perceptions, knowledge, and preferences.

Underuse of natural resources is a direct driving force of environmental degradation with biodiversity loss in Japan (JSSA, 2010). Depopulation and aging in rural areas have led to reductions in land management and increased abandonment of land, both of which have consequently caused degradation of ES. Because the rural landscape can be considered a key source of cultural, social, and environmental services that benefit society, the government has strengthened measures to maintain multiple ES across rural landscapes. However, it is not clear whether ES trade-offs are being recognized comprehensively in terms of ecosystem management. Decision-makers need to know the social benefits of ES and trade-offs if they are to incorporate public value into land-use management.

Over the past decade there has been an intensive research effort to develop methodologies for assessing the benefits of biodiversity and the associated ES (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, TEEB, 2010). The stated preference approach has been developed to estimate the economic value of provisional changes in environmental goods and services on the basis of individual responses to choice experiments (Louviere et al., 2000). Choice experiments are conducted to give an understanding of the responses to surveys on environmental goods and services. Because the public generally has low levels of awareness and an insufficient understanding of the issues, previous studies have introduced ‘ecosystem service indicators’ in their choice experiments. Examples of such indicators are the amount of irrigation water, amount of carbon stored, habitat condition, or population of an endemic species or of charismatic or non-charismatic species (e.g., Barkmann et al., 2008, Glenk, 2011, Christie and Rayment, 2012, Kaffashi et al., 2012).

Choice experiments allow us to evaluate multiple attributes of a landscape, and they have been applied to the evaluation of ES using conjoint analyses with multi-attribute preference elicitation (Louviere, 1994, Dachary-Bernard and Rambonilaza, 2012). In the choice experiment, a set of alternatives is presented to respondents, who are asked to choose their most preferred alternative. Then an econometric analysis based on a random utility model provides utility estimates. An important feature of this discrete-choice model is that the respondents know exactly what utility they will receive from each alternative. The error terms in the model reflect not the individual's uncertainty but instead the information that the researcher is missing. Assumptions are made for the distribution of error terms, allowing us to specify conditional choice probabilities for each individual. The parameters associated with the assumed distributions are then estimated (Train, 2003). Manski (1999) suggested capturing the respondents’ uncertainty at the time of the choice by eliciting choice probabilities from them. In the elicited-choice probabilities approach, respondents are asked to report the probability that they would prefer one scenario over another one. Recently, Blass et al. (2010) developed an innovative method to estimate the parameters in a random utility model by using elicited-choice probabilities. This approach fits the evaluation of incomplete scenarios (such as those including future uncertainty about ecosystems) well.

Trade-off analyses can be unrealistic in regard to how actual choices are made, and the process of decision-making concerning ES trade-offs is a case in point. Our aim was to realistically evaluate public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation policy in Japan. We conducted a choice experiment using land-use scenarios in the rural Kushiro watershed in northern Japan. In the choice experiment, we clearly demonstrated trade-offs between four types of ES along with land-use change, using indicators calculated on the basis of biophysical information. ES indicators were introduced into the choice experiment to express the aim of the land-use policy presented; and the results of two approaches—a discrete-choice approach and an elicited-choice probabilities approach—were compared. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of individual respondent characteristics, including awareness of the personal benefit of ES, on scenario preference.

Section snippets

Site description

The study area was the Kushiro watershed, which is located in Hokkaido Prefecture on Japan's northernmost island (Fig. 1). The total length of the main stream, the Kushiro River, is 154 km, and the total area of the watershed is 2510 km2. The watershed includes a population of about 200,000, located in a city, three towns, and a village. The area includes two national parks, Forest National Park and Wetland National Park. The major land covers include natural forest, managed forest, wetland, and

Socioeconomic characteristics

The respondent characteristics are summarized in Table 2. A total of 3848 respondents aged from the 20s to the 60s responded. The average age was 40.2 years, and the gender ratio was 44.1:55.9 (female:male). The respondents were mainly office employees (40.1%), housewives (15.9%), or part-time workers (12.3%). Average annual household income was 5.84 million JPY. These key social variables were close to national averages. Respondents were selected from across the country: 72.1% lived in cities,

Influences of individual characteristics

We used discrete-choice and elicited-choice probability models to examine individuals’ preferences for a conservation plan in a rural landscape, particularly with regard to biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation policy. We identified several characteristics as influencing factors in both approaches (Table 6). Site knowledge was identified as a significant individual-characteristic factor in the two approaches. Respondents who had knowledge of the site tended to prefer the

Conclusion

Choice experiments were used to evaluate options for ES in a rural landscape in the Kushiro watershed of northern Japan. First, biodiversity conservation of the watershed was, on average, the most preferred option in the experiments. The results of our analyses suggest that the public wants to avoid the extinction of endangered species in preference to climate-change mitigation in the form of carbon sequestration by increasing the area of managed forest. This implies that it would be better to

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all of those who helped with the experiments and the three anonymous reviewers who commented on the earlier versions of the manuscript. This study was supported by the Environmental Research Fund (F-1101) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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