What do we know about public acceptance of designating marine protected area? The case of Jaran Bay in South Korea.

The South Korean Government is considering designating Jaran Bay, the habitat of the endangered marine species, Neophocaena asiaeorientalis, as a marine protected area. The Government needs information about public acceptance and the economic benefits of the designation. To unveil the information, this article aims to examine the public willingness to pay (WTP) using a contingent valuation based on a nationwide survey of 1000 households. As a WTP elicitation method, the one-and-one-half-bounded question format of asking an interviewee whether she/he has the intention of paying a presented bid through annual income tax was adopted. The WTP for the designation was statistically significantly estimated to be KRW 2665 (USD 2.27) per year per household. The estimate of the annual national value amounted to KRW 53 billion (USD 45.30 million). This value is by no means small, but it would take a huge amount of effort to elicit public consensus on the designation considering that a significant proportion of respondents (64.4%) revealed zero WTP.