Value of Preserving a National Park
Attributes
Medium: Land
Country: Vietnam
Analytical Framework(s): Contingent Valuation
Unit(s): Mean WTP
Study Date: 2006
Publication Date: 2009
Major Result(s)
| Category | Resource/Environmental Good | VND (2006) |
VND (2014)1 |
USD (2014)2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turnbull method | Mean WTP for the preservation plan of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park (per month per household, with protest votes) | 5,666.00 | 10,152.68 | 0.48 |
| Turnbull method | Mean WTP for the preservation plan of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park (per month per household, without protest votes) | 6,209.00 | 11,125.66 | 0.52 |
| Logit regression | Mean WTP for the preservation plan of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park (per month per household, with protest votes) | 6,561.00 | 11,756.39 | 0.55 |
| Logit regression | Mean WTP for the preservation plan of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park (per month per household, without protest votes) | 7,369.00 | 13,204.22 | 0.62 |
| Economic viability | Total benefit of the preservation project (annualized) | 107,123,000,000.00 | 191,949,418,780.00 | 8,985,218.17 |
| Economic viability | Total cost of the preservation project (annualized) | 26,874,300,000.00 | 48,154,983,198.00 | 2,254,151.29 |
About the Inflation Adjustment: Prices in Vietnam (VND) changed by 79.19% from 2006 to 2014 (aggregated from annual CPI data), so the study values were multiplied by 1.79 to express them in 2014 prices. The study values could be expressed in any desired year (for example, to 2025) by following the same inflation calculation and being sensitive to directional (forward/backward) aggregations using your own CPI/inflation data.
Study Note: The study focused on estimating the willingness to pay of households in Ho Chi Minh City to preserve Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park. Preservation efforts were limited to specific activities based on the operational management plan of BirdLife International for the period 2004-2008 for controlling and managing Lo Go - Xa Mat, and modified based on the recommendations of environmental experts and the Management Board of Lo Go - Xa Mat. The preservation plan also involved provision for compensation to local communities for income foregone from using forest resources. Ho Chi Minh City was chosen as the survey site since it is a big city with a high population density and has the highest income per capita in Vietnam. The respondents were household representatives having a job and income.
Study Details
Summary: In estimating the willingness to pay of households to preserve Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park, using the contingent valuation method, we employed the single-bounded dichotomous choice question format to estimate how much households in Ho Chi Minh City were willing to contribute towards a preservation plan for the park. This plan comprised twelve preservation activities and compensating the local communities for their foregone income. The study found that households in Ho Chi Minh City were willing to pay at least VND 6,209 per month for three years for the preservation of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park. With protest votes included, factors strongly affecting households' willingness to pay were bid amount and the amount of their monthly electricity bill. The education level of the respondents and the number of working people in the household had significant but lesser impact on their willingness to pay. Without protest votes, the bid amount, monthly electricity bill amount and education level of respondents significantly affected willingness to pay. We found that the annualized benefit value of the project was larger than its annualized cost. This indicated that the preservation plan was economically viable. This study does not provide the total value of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park, but it shows the great value of the park in terms of local households' willingness to pay for its preservation and this is important information for policy-makers in deciding how to protect the park efficiently.
Site Characteristics: With a natural area of 18,806 hectares, Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park is located in Tay Ninh, a province in the southeast of Vietnam. It encompasses three communes in Tan Bien District: Tan Binh, Tan Lap, and Hoa Hiep. Lo Go - Xa Mat was a protected natural area until it was converted into a national park under Decision No. 91/2002/QD-TTg of the government on 12 July, 2002. There are around 250 bird species and 35 mammal species including many rare species. Lo Go - Xa Mat also has diversified vegetative cover with many special woods and valuable herbal remedies. Surrounded by many residential districts, parts of Lo Go - Xa Mat have been encroached by sugarcane and cassava farms, rubber and cashew nut plantations, and housing projects due to the high prices of the mentioned cash crops and land. Many of these encroachments by the local residents are illegal and involve the cutting down of forests. The buffer zone, which surrounds the park, has also been significantly damaged by illegal logging by the local residents and Cambodians living across the border. Moreover, there still exist black markets for wildlife meat around Lo Go - Xa Mat especially for tourists. Therefore, precious wild animal species are threatened.
Comments: The five bids used in the WTP question were obtained through five different FGDs held in Ho Chi Minh City with five different income groups ranging from poor to wealthy. Each group had seven people. In these FGDs, an open-ended WTP question was asked. A pretest was held and then the bids were revised and finalized for use in the questionnaire. The final five bids were: VND 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, and 15,000 per month (approximately USD 0.06, 0.19, 0.31, 0.63, and 0.94)2.