Valuation of Species Preservation

Against a backdrop of increasing species imperilment, there is considerable empirical evidence that preserving threatened, endangered, and rare (TER) species provides significant economic benefits to society. But efforts to measure these benefits has generated both strong methodological and philosophical criticisms. Since the 1960s, economists have developed a battery of nonmarket valuation approaches for estimating economic values associated with changes in the quantity or quality of environmental goods and services. This battery includes both revealed preference and stated preference (SP) approaches (including the contingent valuation [CV] method), with only the latter capable of providing willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for nonuse values. The total economic value of TER species preservation can include nonconsumptive use values (e.g., wildlife watching), and may be especially composed of nonuse values (e.g., based on existence value motivations). By the early 1980s, applied CV studies focusing on TER species preservation had begun to accumulate. Early research centered in the United States. By the mid-1990s the first statistical meta-analysis of TER species NMV studies was completed, and was then updated a dozen years later. These metaregression functions facilitated potential benefit transfers, where the systematic structure of prior original studies could be used to estimate WTP values for a TER species in another setting (absent an original study). Since roughly 2010, the use of choice experiments as an alternative SP approach expanded rapidly. Likewise, the accumulation of additional SP studies generated new summary reviews and meta-analyses, including applications from both developed and developing countries, and expanded benefit transfer opportunities. Going forward, new studies will lead to updated meta-analyses, with additional statistical and theoretical sophistication. Critiques targeted to SP approaches (e.g., with respect to hypothetical bias and nonuse value motivations) will likely remain, and further validity testing and methods development are called for. However, from a pragmatic perspective, persistent efforts at quantification continue to help make the benefits of TER species preservation visible in the face of rapidly increasing species imperilment.

The deep ocean’s link to culture and global processes

The ocean covers a vast region of the planet and is often thought of as remote and poorly known. However, more than a century of research has made it clear that the ocean provides many beneficial and critical services to society, including a diversity of society–ocean interactions beyond what humans extract (or may extract) from it. The deep sea is no different; it provides a wealth of societal benefits that span the spectrum from inspiring art and captivating the mind to mitigating the rate of climate change through its connectedness with the Earth’s ecosystems. These processes and societal impacts fall within the broad category of ‘nonuse’ ecosystem services, or societal benefits that occur in addition to, or instead of, the services realised through resource extraction. Much like the surface ocean, while there is much more to discover, there is a significant body of information about the deep sea that has resolutely identified this environment as an important resource for nonuse benefits. In this chapter we give an overview of the nonuse services that are provided by the deep ocean, identify some of the advances to date on incorporating these values into the discussion of the natural capital of the deep, and highlight the challenges and opportunities that face incorporation of nonuse values into management-decision processes.

Volunteer Use and Nonuse Values, Satisfaction, And Future Engagement in a Sport Event

This study examines the influence of use and nonuse values on volunteers' satisfaction and their continued future engagement in a sports event. Using the case study of the Arctic Winter Games, evidence showed that nonuse values have a higher impact on satisfaction but use values outweigh nonuse values' direct influence on the intention to volunteer again due to the strong mediating effect of satisfaction in the effect of nonuse values on intention to volunteer again. Some of these effects were significantly different based on gender, first-time volunteers, and the younger generation. Both use and nonuse values had greater impact on satisfaction for the indigenous than nonindigenous group. The results point to the new potential for using use and nonuse values to target different groups to continue volunteering.

The Role of Use and Nonuse Values on Festival Attendees' Behavioral Intentions

This article distinguishes between use and nonuse values in their impact on two behavioral intentions to a rural cultural festival. Results from the case study showed that in the willingness to recommend the festival and intention to revisit by repeat tourists, both use and nonuse values were influential but first timers' intention to revisit was mainly affected by use values. In addition, there was support for the recency–frequency–monetary value paradigm and the distance decay theory with some evidence of a nonlinear relationship between distance and behavioral intention. The life cycle theory and length of festival stay on the other hand saw mixed effects on the two types of behavioral intention. Overall, a two-pronged marketing strategy based on the importance of use and nonuse values to attract first timers and repeat tourists could be considered for a cultural festival.