دانلود رایگان مقاله اندازه گیری اولویت عادلانه برای تنوع زیستی

Abstract

Biodiversity undergoes unprecedented rates of erosion despite the important services it provides. This is considered evidence that biodiversity is undervalued. Biodiversity valuation is accordingly a prominent issue in the literature. Economic valuations are, however, largely criticized. Numerous alternatives have been introduced. Most of them involve participatory protocols aimed at producing high-quality results. Being time-consuming and expensive, it is difficult to implement and reproduce them at a large scale. We produce an easily reproducible, inexpensive survey methodology to measure impartial preference for biodiversity. We implement it in Switzerland through a mail-based survey. Our result is that biodiversity should be ranked after retirement schemes and public transportation, but before relations with foreign countries, order and security, and culture and leisure in the expanses of the State. Current expenses therefore substantially underestimate the value that Swiss people grant to biodiversity. Our new method is a viable alternative to standard economic valuation. Given the impartiality achieved, at least in the Swiss political context our estimate can be used by decision makers to assess the legitimacy of conservation programs or to gauge public support. At a philosophical level, our measure is relevant for public policies because it captures the stances that people take when they participate in public decisions.

5. Conclusions

Our aim here was to assess whether an empirical measure of reasonably impartial preference for biodiversity can be reached through a simple survey methodology. We identified theoretical resources for that purpose, and our pilot implementation illustrated the valuable degree of impartiality that can thereby be achieved. Our results can be interpreted at two levels. At a concrete level, we produced an estimate of the value that Swiss people grant to biodiversity. Many aspects of our method can be improved, and one should not underestimate the difficulties of translating such a result into directly implementable political recommendations. However, given the impartiality achieved and the specificities of the Swiss political context, in this very specific context our estimate can already be used by decision makers—perhaps not straightforwardly to reform the State budget but, keeping in mind the specific understanding of “importance” that our protocol embodies, at least to assess the legitimacy of conservation programs or to gauge public support. Our estimate is less precise than iWTP-derived monetary amounts. But biodiversity is not something about which people are accustomed to make decisions. Preferences for biodiversity are accordingly likely to be imprecise: the roughness of our measure reflects the roughness of the preferences it captures. In any case, the significance of our approach lies in the theoretical framework underlying this pilot application, and concrete applications in other contexts would require implementing the various improvements discussed.