Measuring the Local Opportunity Costs of Conservation: A Provision Point Mechanism for Willingness-to-Accept

Abstract

Protected areas are employed world-wide as a means of conserving biodiversity. Unfortunately, restricting access to such areas imposes opportunity costs on local people who have traditionally relied on access to obtain resources such as fuelwood and bushmeat. We use contingent valuation to estimate the local benefits forgone from loss of access to a number of protected area types in Uganda. Methodologically, we innovate by implementing a "provision point" mechanism to estimate Willingness to Accept compensation (WTA) for loss of access to protected areas. We show that the provision point reduces mean WTA by a significant degree.