Environmental attitude, motivations and values for marine biodiversity protection

George Halkos and Steriani Matsiori

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This study explores people’s environmental attitudes and motives for putting economic values to marine biodiversity and its protection. Primary data were collected from a sample of 359 people living in two important Greek coastal port cities: Thessaloniki and Volos. Respondents’ environmental attitude was measured with the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, and economic values were derived from a referendum, contingent valuation method (CVM) survey for protecting marine biodiversity. Use of appropriate statistical methods revealed three factors of environmental attitudes; namely, man dominate to nature, anti-anthropocentrism and limits to growth. Significant relationships are found between NEP scale factors and socio-economic characteristics and individuals’ opinions about marine biodiversity utility. Pro-environmental behavior or attitudes are associated with higher NEP scale scores. At a second stage and in a logistic regression setup the relation between people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for marine biodiversity protection with their socio-economic characteristics and the PCA extracted results are explored. Pro-environmental attitudes influence the estimates of mean WTP. Significant relationships are found between environmental attitudes and non-use motivations and WTP and ethical motives for species protection. Finally individuals’ mean WTP for marine biodiversity protection was calculated approximately equal to € 29 per person.

Keywords: Environmental attitudes; NEP scale; CVM; WTP; biodiversity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 C52 Q20 Q51 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Environmental attitude, motivations and values for marine biodiversity protection (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:63947

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