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Valuing the Benefits of Species Recovery

Client: Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra)


Year: 2022


eftec team: Allan Provins, Russell Drummond, Jake Kuyer, Boris Babic


Partners: UCL, Countryscape, Watermelon



Defra commissioned eftec to estimate the economic value people in England place on implementing policies that improve species recovery and abundance across different habitats.


The evidence can support decisions made about species recovery improvements in England, within the wider framing of habitat targets – such as those set out in the Environment Act. It will also support economic appraisals for smaller scale projects and site level species recovery improvements.


Findings


There is a clear concern about the current state of nature and biodiversity in England, and strong support from people for policy action to reverse the decline.


  • Many said that they cared about protecting the environment for future generations, or recognised that nature had the right to exist and thrive alongside us.

  • Respondents also felt that it was everyone’s responsibility to help protect the environment and that changes in lifestyles could contribute to helping restore nature.


Respondents were also able to meaningfully differentiate between levels of biodiversity and types of habitat. Indeed, we found that generally higher values were placed on improving species presence in the rarest habitats, such as lowland fens or coastal sand dunes. This is the “scarcity” effect and shows that restoring less common habitats is important to people. Furthermore, improving habitats that are already in moderate condition to full wild species presence was valued more highly than improving habitats in poor condition.


Given the trade-offs between their own budgets and these outcomes, households were found to be willing to pay for improved biodiversity and species abundance in England as much as £5 to £7 billion per year for an illustrative scenario of 100,000 hectares improved. The added benefit from increasing levels of recovery does decline demonstrating that initial actions to restore nature will represent the greatest value for money for people.


Policy makers can use this preference and valuation evidence, alongside other evidence, when prioritising type and location of recovery actions.


Method


The study used a large-scale stated preference survey of 5000 respondents and 15 in-depth focus groups. Focus groups also included participation by young adults (16-17 year olds) who are often not consulted in such studies. Econometric analysis was then used to estimate the economic value of species recovery for 11 different habitats which included different types of woodland (by species and location), hay meadows, natural grassland, heathland, lowland fens, blanket bog, rivers and coastal sand dunes.

The respondents were presented with recovery options from ‘minimal wild species presence’ to ‘full wild species presence’ that would be expected from each of the 11 habitats.


Wild Species Recovery spectrum as shown to participants

The choice experiment design for each habitat presented respondents with three scenarios in each choice card: two with some recovery and one with no change. The scenarios are defined in terms of the level of species recovery, total size of area improved, and the size of the sites targeted for recovery as this was found to be important for both the species and the respondents. The cost attribute was a general increase in the household expenditures as an earmarked payment vehicle does not exist for this purpose.



Example choice card, showing a sequence of one of the choices shown to participants

Further detail on the study design, findings and potential uses of findings is published as:

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