Direct use value and households preferences for wetland management of Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary (AMWS) in Agusan del Sur, Philippines

Guadalquiver-Reyes, S.J., Philippines Univ. Los Baños, College, Laguna

Direct use value and households preferences for wetland management of Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary (AMWS) in Agusan del Sur, Philippines

2010

Guadalquiver-Reyes, S.J., Philippines Univ. Los Baños, College, Laguna (Philippines)

This paper aimed to estimate the direct use value and analyze the households' preferences for wetland management of Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. The study used secondary data to estimate the direct use value of AMWS using the market price method. Total direct use value of AMWS is PhP91,612,719.50 from fisheries, agriculture, transport and tourism sectors. Agriculture accounted for 97% of its total value. The choice experiment method was used to determine the preferences for AMWS wetland management using the logit models. Results showed that all attributes except the number of migratory birds were significant. Of most importance was biodiversity followed by research and education uses and re-training of fishermen, farmers and loggers. Each household is willing to pay Php27.21, Php23.13, and Php0.44 for biodiversity, research and education uses and re-training of fishermen, farmers, and loggers, respectively. Consequently, the implied WTP [willingness to pay] for an ideal improved management scenario is PhP91.88/household/year, when aggregated amounts to PhP11,671,467 for the entire province. A separate analysis of data from north and south showed that respondents differed in its preferences of wetland attributes. These findings have policy implications in terms of crafting and implementation of conservation and management programs to ensure that activities within AMWS would be sustainable.

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