Aseres Sintayehu Aynalem, Sira Raminder Kaur
Department of Tourism Management, Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia and PhD. Scholar at School of Management Studies in Punjabi University, India.
School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, India.
Heliyon. 2020 Aug 27;6(8):e04500. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04500. eCollection 2020 Aug.
An increasing number of protected areas (PAs) are being established in many countries to conserve and preserve the wildlife species and to maintain earth's ecological balance, but in emerging economies such as Ethiopia, PAs are currently confronted with inadequate conservation funding that makes it tough to protect the remaining biodiversity. PAs, therefore try to use other financial means such as ecotourism to subsidize their financial shortage and nourishes the nexus between conservation and development. Estimation of visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) would be useful to craft strategies to strengthen the self-financing capability of PAs and hence realizing environmental and livelihood goals. In this study, the visitors' WTP for the proposed conservation fund in the context of Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) was estimated using a contingent valuation method. The finding indicated that 75% of visitors were willing to pay a conservation fee. The mean WTP was estimated to be US$7.40 for foreign visitors and US$1.00 for domestic visitors. The finding suggests that the implementation of conservation fee in addition to the existing entry fee helps to improve the long-term sustainable financing of PAs.
许多国家正在建立越来越多的保护区，以保护野生动物物种并维持地球的生态平衡，但在埃塞俄比亚等新兴经济体中，保护区目前面临着保护资金不足的问题，这使得保护剩余的生物多样性变得困难。因此，保护区试图利用生态旅游等其他财政手段来补贴资金短缺，并促进保护与发展之间的联系。估计游客的支付意愿（WTP）将有助于制定战略，以加强保护区的自筹资金能力，从而实现环境和生计目标。在本研究中，使用条件价值评估法估计了游客对巴勒山国家公园（BMNP）拟建保护基金的支付意愿。结果表明，75%的游客愿意支付保护费。外国游客的平均支付意愿估计为7.40美元，国内游客为1.00美元。研究结果表明，除了现有的门票外，实施保护费有助于改善保护区的长期可持续融资。
