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Valuing remnant vegetation in Central Queensland using choice modelling
Author(s) -
Blamey Russell,
Rolfe John,
Bennett Jeff,
Morrison Mark
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
australian journal of agricultural and resource economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.683
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-8489
pISSN - 1364-985X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8489.00119
Subject(s) - clearing , threatened species , vegetation (pathology) , endangered species , geography , population , pastoralism , agroforestry , environmental science , ecology , forestry , economics , livestock , biology , habitat , medicine , demography , finance , pathology , sociology
In the Desert Uplands region of Central Queensland, many pastoralists are clearing vegetation in order to improve cattle grazing production. A choice modelling study was undertaken to provide estimates of the benefits of retaining remnant vegetation that are appropriate for inclusion in a cost benefit analysis of tighter clearing restrictions. Attributes included in the choice model were reductions in the population size of non‐threatened species, the number of endangered species lost to the region, and changes in regional income and employment. A nested logit model was used to model the data in order to avoid violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition. The estimated benefits are reported for several tree clearing policy regimes that are more stringent than those currently applied.