Public preferences for marine park design in Western Australia

Alaya Spencer-Cotton, Matt Navarro and Nicole Hamre

No 339006, Working Papers from University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: ● Effective design and planning of marine protected areas requires an understanding of the socioeconomic uses and values that exist for the proposed marine area. Inevitably, different stakeholders will have different preferences for the spatial design of the no-take sanctuary zones within a marine park. One key stakeholder group that is often missing from marine park planning is the broader community, or public. This group might currently visit and use the proposed marine park area, they might plan to visit in the future, and may also derive benefit from other non-use outcomes such as from marine ecosystem services. ● In 2023, Western Australia started consultation for the establishment of two new marine parks. The extension and rezoning of an existing marine park adjacent to metropolitan Perth, the Marmion Marine Park, and one new marine park on the south coast of the state, named here as the Proposed South Coast Marine Park. ● This working paper presents results from surveys of the Western Australian public that included two stated preference experiments, a single binary choice question and a multiple discrete choice experiment. ● Results demonstrate a strong public desire for world-class conservation outcomes for both the Marmion and the Proposed South Coast Marine Parks, with 75% of the general public supporting the creation of no-take sanctuary zones across at least 31% of both marine park areas. We estimate that Western Australian households are willing to pay more to achieve larger areas of no-take sanctuary zones - A$112 per household per year for 45% at Marmion Marine Park and A$123 per household per year for 45% at the Proposed South Coast Marine Park, for an aggregate value of A$84.3 million and A$92.3 million respectively. We also find that public valuation increases by between 19% and 57% when sanctuary zones include extensive shore protection enabling greater connection with the community.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-des and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwauwp:339006

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.339006

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