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Abstract: This paper is about how institutions determine choices and the importance of this for environmental policy. The model of individual rational choice from neoclassical economics is compared with the model of socially determined behavior. While in the first case, institutions are either exempted from or understood as mere economizing constraints on behavior, the latter perspective views institutions as basic structures necessary also to enable people to act. The paper develops a way to integrate the individualistic model into the wider perspective of social constructivism by viewing it as a special form of such construction. On the basis of this synthesis three issues with relevance for environmental economics are discussed. First, the role of institutional factors in the process of preference formation is emphasized. Next, the role of institutions for the choice of desired states of the environment is analyzed. Finally, the effect of various policy instruments to motivate people to produce these states is discussed. It is concluded that the core policy issue is to determine which institutional frameworks are most reasonable to apply to which kind of problem. Issues, which from the perspective of neoclassical economics are pure technical, become serious value questions if understood from an institutional perspective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the implications of an environmental policy for growth performances. We develop a model where growth is driven by human capital accumulation. Firms invest in research to develop new technologies to reduce their pollution emissions and education is treated as product which not only enhances the productivity of individuals but also enters in their preferences. We find that a tighter environmental policy can promote growth. The reason is that a higher tax on pollution drives the prices of goods whose production is polluting up. This, in turn, enhances the willingness of individuals to acquire education. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Environmental quality is rarely prioritized along the development pathways of developing countries, even though little is known about how individuals in these settings value intact environments. In 2017, we conducted a survey with a representative sample of 3660 households living throughout the Karnali and Mahakali River Basins in Western Nepal. As part of the survey, respondents were asked about how they use environmental services and participated in a double-bounded, dichotomous choice contingent valuation exercise designed to elicit their ability and willingness to pay (WTP) for a land conservation program that would prevent future development in and around their villages. We estimate the average monthly WTP for land conservation to be 202 NRs (US$1.96) and a lower bound of monthly household WTP to be 165 NRs (US$1.60). We find that households with higher levels of education exhibit higher willingness to pay; as do male respondents. We also find a significant negative relationship between household WTP and both migration and local NGO familiarity. Highlights • Households in Western Nepal rely on forest and water resources for livelihoods and sustenance. • Household willingness to pay for environmental conservation averages about US$2 per month. • More highly educated households report higher valuations. • Households with migrant family members and familiarity with NGOs report lower valuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The standard metaphor of market failure is an impediment to the crafting of environmental policy that can escape policy lock in. Sustainability requires a policy process that can avoid this lock in. Sustainability concerns the creation of dynamic human processes that can respond to—indeed anticipate—unanticipated feedback from biological processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Survey based valuation techniques like the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) rely particularly on the premise of respondents'' rationality when answering willingness to pay (WTP) questions. Results of CVM surveys have repeatedly put this fundamental assumption into question. This study adopts a more realistic view of rationality accounting for respondents'' limited capacities to process information. Based on cognitive psychology a technique to detect and analyze the bounds of rationality inherent in WTP statements is developed. Using an empirical example, the influence of bounded rationality on the validity of CVM results is analyzed. It is shown that individual differences in information processing play a major role for the validity of CVM responses. The results allow new insights into response behavior in dichotomous-choice versus payment card elicitation formats. From the results of this study recommendations for future survey designs taking into account respondents'' different information processing modes are developed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Valuation of endangered species is important in many circumstances, and particularly when assessing the impact of large accidental oil spills. Previous studies have tested the effects of including in the contingent valuation survey reminders about the existence of diverse substitutes (in terms of other natural resources also in danger of extinction in the same area, other programs to be valued, or alternative uses of money). We include a reminder about the existence of the same biological species not being under danger of extinction elsewhere. We believe this reminder allows individuals to make an easy assessment of the biological scarcity of the species they are supposed to value. Thus, the key difference with previous studies is that valuation of endangered species is combined with an assessment of preferences towards conservation of local and native species. Our WTP results are not sensitive to the information provided about other foreign substitutes. Implications of this finding are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We attempt to measure general attitudes and ethical beliefs towards preservation, as well as the importance of each of the three considered value orientations (biospheric, egoistic and altruistic) in WTP estimates. In the present study, we apply the GAC scale to a contingent valuation exercise for the recovery of the common murre (Uria aalge) in Galicia (Spain). Up to now, only a few studies in the field of environmental and ecological economics have analyzed value orientations under the Environmental Concern (EC) framework, obtaining mixed results. In the present work, we conclude that ethical aspects affect the individuals decision making process, and that value orientations play an important role in the pro-environmental attitude formation. These value orientations affect willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for environmental goods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores and contrasts the different social processes of valuation now appearing as economic means of valuing the environment. Monetary valuation via stated preference approaches has been criticised for assuming well formed and informed preferences and excluding a range of sustainability concerns such as rights, fairness and equity. Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) in small groups is a novel hybrid of economic and political approaches which raises the prospect of a transformative and moralising experience. Critics of standard contingent valuation approaches have advocated this as offering a way forward. However there has been a lack of clarity as to the means of obtaining values, the expected outcomes and their role. Moving to group settings of deliberation raises concepts of social willingness to pay and accept which are distinct from an aggregate of individual value, although this does not seem to have been widely recognised. A new classification of values is presented appropriate to the literature trying to merge economic and political processes. Values associated with the individual may be exchange values, charitable contributions or fair prices, while social values can be speculative, expressive or arbitrated. The use of DMV is shown to result in different values due to variations in the institutional setting and process of valuation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This research examines the impact of uncertainty on contingent valuation responses using (1) a survey of Canadian landowners about willingness to accept compensation for converting cropland to forestry and (2) a survey of Swedish residents about willingness to pay for forest conservation. Five approaches from the literature for incorporating respondent uncertainty are used and compared to the traditional random utility model with assumed certainty. The results indicate that incorporating uncertainty has the potential to increase fit, but could introduce additional variance. While some methods for uncertainty can be an improvement over traditional approaches, it is imperative to exercise caution when making systematic judgments about the effect of uncertainty on contingent valuation responses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the viability of an alternative (to willingness-to-pay) method of eliciting values for farm animal welfare improvements. The matching method, common in the health and safety literature, appears to perform well, generating results that, as might be expected, are driven both by scheme-specific variables and individual respondent characteristics. However, the results do not converge well with equivalent willingness-to-pay based values from the same population. One interpretation of this result is that benefit–cost ratios from stated preference studies are arbitrary phenomena with obvious implications for any policymaking based on such findings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In an original extension of contingent valuation methodology (CVM), support for a proposed environmental regulation is examined under three alternative polluter-pay specifications. Using a statewide random telephone sample of Washington State''s electorate, one scenario asks respondents for their support absent any CV price and absent any information regarding what producers will pay. A second scenario asks willingness to pay (WTP) providing only a CV price but no polluter-pay information. A third scenario asks respondents for their support giving both a CV price and a percentage of total costs producers will pay. Extending the CV methodology, this percentage varies randomly between respondents. Absent any price or firm cost sharing information, some respondents assume producers are absorbing the costs. Providing a CV price reverses this assumption, and reduces support even after controlling for price. When the CV price is given along with the percentage, WTP increases the larger the percentage. Within each scenario support also varies according to whether the type of industry being regulated is small and competitive, or monopolistic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Instead of assuming that each individual has a single point value for a good or service in her mind, we believe that an individual''s valuation of an environmental quality improvement is best viewed as a random variable with an associated distribution. To measure individuals'' valuation distributions, we propose a contingent valuation elicitation procedure based on a stochastic payment card approach that presents each respondent with numerical likelihood that the respondent would agree to pay a specified amount in order to implement an environmental improvement plan. An empirical pilot study was conducted in Sofia, Bulgaria to illustrate the implementation of this stochastic payment card and to contrast it with the traditional referendum elicitation procedure. In this pilot study the results obtained using the stochastic payment card approach are significantly lower than those obtained from the referendum model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The transportation sector offers substantial potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission abatement, but widely divergent cost estimates complicate policy making; energy–economy policy modelers apply top-down and bottom-up cost definitions and different assumptions about future technologies and the preferences of firms and households. Our hybrid energy–economy policy model is technology-rich, like a bottom-up model, but has empirically estimated behavioral parameters for risk and technology preferences, like a top-down model. Unlike typical top-down models, however, it simulates technological change endogenously with functions that relate the financial costs of technologies to cumulative production and adjust technology preferences as market shares change. We apply it to the choice of personal vehicles to indicate, first, the effect on cost estimates of divergent cost definitions and, second, the possible response to policies that require a minimum market share for low emission vehicles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Critics of the contingent valuation (CV) method have argued that individuals apply “noneconomic” motives in responding to CV questions, implying that elicited values are not valid measures of the economic benefit of environmental improvement. This study examines the role of such motives by using measures of attitude and motive strength to interpret willingness-to-pay (WTP) values for a set of nested environmental goods with potential use and nonuse benefits. Motivational structure is found to be more complex than suggested by the simple distinction between valid economic–theoretic and “noneconomic” motives. Social motivations possibly associated with the benefit of contributing to a public good rather than the benefits of the good itself are potentially relevant to the WTP decision but do not give rise to separable values. The strength of perceived personal responsibility for provision of the good is significantly associated with WTP but also with the theoretically desirable property of enhanced scope sensitivity. WTP is not found to be associated with the extent to which the individual feels under some general moral obligation to contribute to “good causes”. Motives arising from ethical concerns for the environment and altruism are also potentially relevant to WTP but are closely related to underlying motives associated with existence and personal use values, respectively. It is suggested that the CV debate should be informed by further empirical investigation of the extent to which motives for WTP can be treated as separable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The method of planning nature conservation policy is part of the social context in contingent valuation (CV). This study compares two planning methods in otherwise uniformly designed valuation scenarios, the actual planning, which the public criticized as being excessively bureaucratic, and a hypothetical one in which planning procedure was described as participatory. The results indicated that the planning method had a significant effect on people''s willingness to pay for nature conservation. However, respondents for whom the project was of low personal relevance were not able to recognize the difference between the good and the planning. Consequently, their beliefs concerning the attributes of the good itself were affected by the planning method. In contrast, the respondents for whom nature conservation was of high personal relevance were able to differentiate between the policy-planning method and the good itself. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The debate on the relevance of monetary valuation of environmental goods has often hinged around the convergence of stated and revealed preferences, and in turn the actual money choices of respondents. In this paper, we report two separate experiments conducted in southeastern Nigeria to compare irrigators'' stated willingness to pay for a river basin restoration scheme designed to mitigate soil and water pollution problems in their farms with their actual expenditures to mitigate the same pollution problems. We found that the farmers'' stated and revealed preferences were significantly correlated but yielded significantly different means at 5% level. While econometric analysis reveals a systematic association between key socioeconomic variables and farmers'' stated WTP, lending credence to the CVM within its theoretical framework, analysis of the qualitative follow-ups reveals inconsistencies in some farmers'' stated and revealed preferences that cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of economic theory alone. While individual utility maximisation was a dominant driver of both stated and revealed preferences for most farmers, lack of environmental awareness, information complexity, risk aversion and peer pressure were seen to limit the ability and willingness of the least educated segment of the sample to make apparently rational economic decisions in both markets. Overall, the results question the use of convergent and/or theoretical validity arguments for justifying and/or criticising the use of stated preference experiments in environmental policy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Key features of U.S. agri-environmental programs are reviewed and analyzed using literature review and program data. We focus, in particular, on several key questions: Has benefit–cost targeting increased the environmental benefit obtained from program budgets? Has competitive bidding reduced program costs? To what extent have these program designs resulted in additional gain (that would not have otherwise been obtained)? Previous research illustrates how benefit–cost targeting using environmental indices (such as the Environmental Benefits Index in the Conservation Reserve Program) can increase environmental cost-effectiveness. Previous research and data from two U.S. programs suggests that bidding has reduced costs, but that the full potential of bidding may not have been realized. Finally, most U.S. programs are intended to yield environmental gains that would not have otherwise been obtained, but sometimes fall short of this goal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The standard test for scope sensitivity in contingent valuation studies determines whether the response to changes in scope is statistically significant; it does not address whether the magnitude of response is appropriate given the specified changes in scope. We examine contingent valuation studies that implemented scope tests to determine what they imply about the adequacy of response to scope. We find that in the vast majority of studies, the magnitude of response cannot be assessed. Only three studies permit such an assessment: Samples and Hollyer (1990), Diamond et al. (1993) and Chapman et al. (2009). The first two papers find that responses to their surveys did not vary adequately with scope. The third study passed the standard scope test, but we show that the magnitude of response in this study is inadequate by straightforward methods of assessment and cannot be explained by diminishing marginal utility or substitution. More research is needed on this issue, including wider application of adding-up tests on incremental parts, as well as the development of other methods that permit an assessment of the magnitude of response or other tests of rationality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines empirically the relative influence of the degree of endangerment of wildlife species and their stated likeability on individuals'' allocation of funds for their conservation. To do this, it utilises data obtained from the IUCN Red List, and likeability and fund allocation data obtained from two serial surveys of a sample of the Australian public who were requested to assess 24 Australian wildlife species from three animal classes: mammals, birds and reptiles. Between the first and second survey, respondents were provided with extra information about the focal species. This information resulted in the dominance of endangerment as the major influence on the allocation of funding of respondents for the conservation of the focal wildlife species. Our results throw doubts on the proposition in the literature that the likeability of species is the dominant influence on willingness to pay for conservation of wildlife species. Furthermore, because the public''s allocation of fund for conserving wildlife species seems to be more sensitive to information about the conservation status of species than to factors influencing their likeability, greater attention to providing accurate information about the former than the latter seems justified. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that respondents'' lack of familiarity with the valued resource causes invalid and unreliable responses in contingent valuation surveys. With non-users'' valuations, mainly motivated by non-use values, the issue is also closely linked to the discussion of the measurement of non-use values. This paper re-examines the impact of previous use on respondents'' willingness to support nature conservation, their motives for valuing the resource and the validity of responses. The users'' and non-users'' characteristics differed, but there was no difference between the groups in their willingness to support sustained conservation. However, those planning to visit the area in the near future were more likely to pay for conservation than other respondents, even if they did not have previous use experience. Users considered their income constraint somewhat more carefully and were more aware of conservation-related issues than non-users. However, there was no difference in the validity of the WTP responses of the groups. Thus, there seems to be no rationale from a point of view of validity to restrict CVM analysis only to those individuals who have previous experience of the resource, which is in line with the basic premise of CVM. Furthermore, non-use values remained as significant motives for valuing the resource even if the use of the resource was intensive. Therefore, if the existence of a large non-use value component is considered as problematic in general, the problem is likely to exist for all respondent groups and not only for non-users. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Forests play a significant role for human''s well being. Economists'' attention is mostly drawn on the market value of (certain) forest products. The trend, however, is changing as non-market values of forests are increasingly appreciated and measured. Recently, the ecosystem value of natural resources has been studied by natural resource economists and its role on human welfare is ensured. These studies had made a considerable progress in valuation of environmental and ecological services, which was offered by ecosystems. There are different methods assessing environmental economy based on revealed and stated preference for measure of environmental values. The subjects of this research are the determination of existence value of north forests of Iran (NFI), adjacent to Caspian Sea, and measure of individual''s willingness to pay (WTP) based on contingent valuation (CV) and dichotomous choice (DC). The logit model was used for measuring individuals WTP. Estimation parameters of the model are based on the method of maximum likelihood (ML). Results showed that 65.8% individuals are willing to pay for the existence of NFI, while about 20% of these individuals have not yet visited, and 41% of them only visited the NFI once or twice. The mean of WTP for existence value of these forests is US$2.51 household/month or annual value of US$30.12 for a household. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Policy makers have responded to concerns over declining levels of biodiversity by introducing a range of policy measures including agri-environment and wildlife management schemes. Costs for such measures are relatively easy to establish, but benefits are less easily estimated. Economics can help guide the design of biodiversity policy by eliciting public preferences on different attributes of biodiversity. However, this is complicated by the generally low level of awareness and understanding of what biodiversity means on the part of the general public. In this paper we report research that applied the choice experiment and contingent valuation methods to value the diversity of biological diversity. Focus groups were used to identify ecological concepts of biodiversity that were important and relevant to the public, and to discover how best to describe these concepts in a meaningful and understandable manner. A choice experiment examined a range of biodiversity attributes including familiarity of species, species rarity, habitat, and ecosystem processes, while a contingent valuation study examined public willingness to pay for biodiversity enhancements associated with agri-environmental and habitat re-creation policy. The key conclusions drawn from the valuation studies were that the public has positive valuation preferences for most, but not all, aspects of biodiversity, but that they appeared to be largely indifferent to how biodiversity protection was achieved. Finally, we also investigate the extent to which valuation workshop approaches to data collection can overcome some of the possible information problems associated with the valuation of complex goods. The key conclusion was that the additional opportunities for information exchange and group discussion in the workshops helped to reduce the variability of value estimates. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The contingent valuation method is a widely used, yet controversial approach for valuating unpriced public goods in environmental and ecological economics. There is ongoing debate about the validity of the willingness-to-pay statements this method elicits particularly then when ethically or morally 'charged' public goods are assessed. It has been assumed that a considerable portion of the public holds deontological stances toward and applies analytical moral reasoning to such goods, which distort willingness-to-pay statements and subsequent cost-benefit analyses based on stated economic values. Results from studies in developmental and moral psychology, however, indicate that the majority of people base moral choice, and subsequently trade-offs, on social norms, affective reactions, and moral intuition rather than on analytical moral reasoning. This article presents a small focus-group study of people in the UK (n =18), exploring whether their responses supports the idea that a considerable percentage of the public holds deontological stances towards the environment that influence their willingness to pay for environmental goods. The article contributes to the discourse on the validity of willingness-to-pay statements. From a broader perspective, it scrutinizes the importance of analytical moral reasoning and suggests that affective judgments and intuition are relevant to environmental valuation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Contingent valuation has been used for over 30 years to reveal preferences for non-market environmental goods. Recent research has questioned the assumption that consumers posses fixed and well-defined preference orderings for such goods and suggests that individuals may need to form values for unfamiliar goods during the CV exercise itself. In this paper, we investigate how and why WTP is influenced by time to think, differing information levels and the opportunity to deliberate in a group setting for an unfamiliar good (red kite reintroduction) and a familiar good (green energy from wind power). For the Red Kite Project, we find that after several rounds of valuation final mean WTP is significantly different from initial mean WTP and that information, time to think and the opportunity to deliberate all influenced the valuation process. For the familiar good (wind power), mean WTP is not significantly different. Our overall conclusion is that whilst “one-shot” CV surveys may be appropriate for environmental goods that are familiar to participants (e.g. recreation benefits), they are not appropriate for less familiar goods (rare species) where the CV exercise should act as a ‘preference engine’ by giving participants time to think, information sufficient to their needs, and the opportunity to deliberate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Contingent Valuation panel recommended that a response category be included along with the vote in favor and vote against options associated with a referendum contingent valuation question that allows individuals to express lack of a well defined opinion. However, the recommendation did not include guidance on how to analyze such responses. In this article, we describe the results of a carefully designed split sample experiment that allowed for comparison of a standard dichotomous-choice referendum treatment to a treatment that included the option of responding unsure to the contingent valuation question in addition to the standard vote in favor and vote against response categories. We are able to examine several options for dealing with the unsure responses and conclude that the unsure responses should be included in the value estimation as the respondents who choose this response category are distinct from respondents who choose the vote in favor and vote against response categories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The spatial distribution of agri-environmental policy benefits has important implications for the efficient allocation of management effort. The practical convenience of relying on sample mean values of individual benefits for aggregation can come at the cost of biased aggregate estimates. The main objective of this paper is to test spatial hypotheses regarding respondents'' local water quality and quantity, and their willingness-to-pay for improvements in water quality attributes. This paper combines choice experiment and spatially related water quality data via a Geographical Information System (GIS) to develop a method that evaluates the influence of respondents'' local water quality on willingness-to-pay for river and stream conservation programmes in Canterbury, New Zealand. Results showed that those respondents who live in the vicinity of low quality waterways are willing to pay more for improvements relative to those who live near to high quality waterways. The study also found that disregarding the influence of respondents'' local water quality data has a significant impact on the magnitude of welfare estimates and causes substantial underestimation of aggregated benefits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Experimental economics has emerged and matured as a formal method for questioning and testing economic theory and assumptions concerning individual behavior. More recently, experimental methods have been used successfully in an economic laboratory to test alternative environmental policy options. The data underpinning these experiments is often stylized or hypothetical in nature. Ecologists and experimental economists have much to gain by exploring ways to underpin economic experiments with data generated from biophysical models. The study makes a contribution by demonstrating how underpinning experiments with regionally modeled biophysical data may give insights which would not necessarily arise from stylized data. In this study sediment data generated from an Environmental Management Support System (EMSS), a software model of sediment runoff in catchments, was used to populate the players'' decision space. The study investigated the relative performance of four different instruments, closed first and second price call tenders, cap and trade and command and control regulation. These market instruments will be compared with the aim of promoting riparian management and reducing total suspended solids exiting a catchment. The study finds that the cost of meeting regulatory requirement of sediment reduction through command and control is less than either first or second price auction. However, cap and trade produced high levels of convergence and production, which moved towards minimizing the cost of achieving the cap reduction level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Embedding is the widely-observed phenomenon that a good is assigned a higher value if evaluated on its own rather than as part of a more inclusive set. Embedding is considered a serious problem affecting the quality of many environmental management and health risk policy judgments. This paper presents the results of an experiment involving of a structured, small-group approach for conducting environmental policy evaluations. It focuses on eliciting problem-specific values and discussion among participants about the pros and cons of multiple project alternatives, in the context of tradeoffs between fisheries production and electricity generation from dams. Study results show a significant reduction in embedding, which is viewed as an improvement in the quality of the preference judgments compared with a standard contingent valuation (CV) approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, this article investigates the under-researched demand-side of locally-financed Payments for Environmental Services (PES). It assesses downstream users'' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved tap water quality in a setting where upstream landowners are clearing watersheds. The research findings are indicative of a considerable WTP for improved drinking water services and a definite local awareness of upstream–downstream interdependencies, suggesting potential for successful PES. Contingent Valuation (CV), however, found a substantially lower WTP under a PES scenario than under an alternative scenario involving infrastructure investments. The qualitative research angle indicates that the feasibility of a locally-financed PES system may have been negatively affected by the prevailing discursive framing of agricultural externalities and entitlements, raising issues about the fairness of such payments. Moreover, low levels of mutual trust were found to undermine the credibility of the PES framework. These results confirm that institutional failures contribute to environmental degradation and that PES should not be viewed as a market panacea transcending the local institutional context, but rather as a potentially complementary instrument within a broader rearrangement of environmental governance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

: Internet is an increasingly popular data collection mode for stated preference research in environmental economics. However, little is known about how this survey mode may influence data quality and welfare estimates. As part of a national contingent valuation (CV) survey estimating willingness to pay (WTP) for biodiversity protection plans, we assign two groups of respondents either to an Internet or face-to-face (in-home) interview mode. Our design aims to better isolate measurement effects from sample composition effects by drawing both samples from the same sample frame. We find little evidence of social desirability bias in the interview setting or satisficing (shortcutting the response process) in the Internet survey. The share of “don''t knows”, zeros and protest responses to the WTP question with a payment card is very similar between modes and equality of mean WTP cannot be rejected. Results are fairly encouraging for the use of Internet in CV as stated preferences do not seem to be significantly different or biased compared to face-to-face interviews. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The example of peatlands is used to demonstrate the challenges facing the sustainable management of natural resources in situations where the fragility of an environment is not appreciated by all stakeholders. We reveal, through the use of a survey applying both contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments, that many local people and others within the wider population, value peatlands as an example of a cultural landscape. However, there is a reluctance to stop extracting peat for domestic fuel even though the activity is undermining the ecological sustainability of this same landscape. This resistance is shown to arise because the cutting of peat is a well-established land use and a cessation of peat cutting is perceived to require the abandonment of traditional rights. In addition, the activity is widely regarded as more benign than industrial scale cutting for energy. The value attached to the landscape is an opportunity for conservation policy, but for this to succeed there must be an acknowledgement of local interests. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A survey was designed to elicit donations for delaying inevitable aquatic invasions of inland water bodies within a respondent's region. Surveys were distributed throughout the United States. Assuming all aquatic species groups invade simultaneously, our results suggest that the average person was willing to make a one-time payment of $48 to delay low to high impacts one year (aggregates to nearly $4billion for all U.S. households). By comparison, the federal government currently (2006) invests $394million annually for all invasive species (aquatic and terrestrial) prevention and early detection/rapid response. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A study was undertaken to estimate the benefits and costs of riparian restoration projects along the Little Tennessee River in western North Carolina. Restoration benefits were described in terms of five indicators of ecosystem services: abundance of game fish, water clarity, wildlife habitat, allowable water uses, and ecosystem naturalness. A sequence of dichotomous choice contingent valuation questions were presented to local residents to assess household willingness to pay increased county sales taxes for differing amounts of riparian restoration. Results showed that the benefits of ecosystem restoration were a non-linear function of restoration scale and the benefits of full restoration were super-additive. We estimated the costs of riparian restoration activities by collecting and analyzing data from 35 projects in the study area. After adjusting our estimated valuation function for socio-economic characteristics of the local population, the benefit/cost ratio for riparian restoration ranged from 4.03 (for 2 miles of restoration) to 15.65 (for 6 miles of restoration). Riparian restoration in this watershed is therefore an economically feasible investment of public funds at all measured spatial scales. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study uses a multi-part, split-sample contingent valuation method (CVM) and fair share (FS) survey to better understand the public's valuation of mitigating global climate change through its willingness to pay for biomass or “cellulosic” ethanol. In addition to a basic CVM question, a related scenario was developed that asked half of the survey respondents to state their fair share cost to lessen a potential food shortage in the next decade, also through the expanded use of cellulosic ethanol. Three alternative biomass feedstocks were assessed: farming residues, forestry residues and paper mill wastes, and municipal solid wastes. Overall a slightly larger proportion of respondents were WTP extra for cellulosic ethanol in the basic CVM scenario than in the FS scenario, though no significant differences were found in the WTP for the different feedstocks. Bid curve lognormal regression results for the two models were similar, supporting the idea that asking a FS rather than a conventional WTP question may be justifiable in some circumstances, such as in cases of a national emergency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]