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Does fisheries management reflect societal values? Contingent Valuation evidence for the River Murray
Author(s) -
BAKER D.L.,
PIERCE B.E.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
fisheries management and ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1365-2400
pISSN - 0969-997X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2400.1997.d01-160.x
Subject(s) - respondent , recreation , willingness to pay , recreational fishing , contingent valuation , residence , valuation (finance) , fishery , fisheries management , value (mathematics) , catch and release , geography , economics , fishing , business , environmental resource management , ecology , statistics , demographic economics , mathematics , microeconomics , biology , finance , political science , law
Non‐use value is likely to be a significant component of the total societal value of a fishery, but is rarely quantified and is not explicitly considered in most management structures. Contingent Valuation Methodology (Willingness‐to‐Pay approach) was employed to obtain estimates of the value of the lower River Murray fishery recreational and non‐consumptive sectors relative to the commercial sector. Respective estimates of $A9.6 m, $A45.2 m and $A1.1 m per annum indicate the importance of considering non‐use values in fisheries management. A parallel Willingness‐to‐Accept approach provided estimates of fishery value 8–15 times greater than the Willingness‐to‐Pay estimates. Analysis of the independent variables (age, sex, location of home residence, whether or not the respondent was a recreational angler and whether or not the respondent was a recreational angler on the River Murray) relative to the dependent Willingness‐to‐Pay estimates, revealed that the only significant explanatory variable was whether the respondent fished recreationally in this fishery. It is argued that management structure should first reflect societal values before the effectiveness of management strategies or individual mechanisms can be meaningfully assessed.