What affects voluntary contributions to national parks

1

• What affects voluntary contributions to national
  parks?
• - A field study in Cahuita National Park, Costa
  Rica
• Work in progress
• Results from pilot studies
• Francisco Alpizar
• Peter Martinsson

2
Development of Cahuita national park

• - The area around Cahuita was traditionally used
  by the locals mainly for hunting, fishing and
  coconut harvesting.
• In the 1970s the government began to protect
  land all over Costa Rica by creation of national
  parks.
• When Cahuita was declared a national park, the
  locals activities were outlawed.
• After some protests by locals, some of them were
  allowed to return to their previous activities
  within the park.
• When the tourist boom hit Cahuita, the people
  started to make their living from the tourists.

3
Development of Cahuita national park (cont.)

• The local community made an uprising against the
  government by peacefully taking control over the
  park by sitting at the entrance and letting
  tourists know that they did not have to pay a
  fixed entrance fee, but were welcome to give a
  donation.
• The government officials left the national park
  and accepted a system of co-management of the
  park that is still maintained.

• There are 2 entrances to Cahuita NP
• The main entrance is over a bridge. Each
  individual entering the park has to register and
  at the same time is asked if they would like to
  donate money.

4
Payment system

• How does the payment system work?
• Cahuita national park (Sector Playa Blanca) is
  the only national park in Costa Rica that does
  not charge entrance fees.
• Cahuita national park currently relies only on
  voluntary contributions ? large operational
  deficit
• Which bodies are interest in the payments?
• The national park system (SINAC) primarily for
  funds to cover the expenditures of the national
  park and as means to reduce environmental damages
  to the park
• The local community of Cahuita does receive a
  variable share of the revenues raised through
  donations (to be used for social projects), but
  is mostly concerned about the spillover effects
  from visitation to Cahuita National Park on the
  local economy (both expenditure per day and the
  duration of stay).

5
Basic facts

• Figures
• Approximately 50.000 visitors per year.
• Average donation of 1USD.
• Entrance fee used in other national parks are
  6USD per visitor.
• Conflict
• The locals are more interested in raising
  private benefits from restaurants and hotels.
• Park authorities are willing to reduce the
  number of visitors to achieve ecological
  benefits, even at a costs to hotels and
  restaurants in the community.
• Park authorities and the community have started
  to discuss ways to raise revenues by
• establishing a two-part payment system that
  includes an entrance fee and a voluntary
  contribution
• to explore means to increase the current average
  donation (information, better services, etc)

6
Key issues

• - How to finance the development of policies for
  protection and maintenance of natural resources?
• Voluntary contributions
• Entrance fee (day versus week pass)
• Entrance fee and voluntary contributions
• - How do these different payment systems affect
  the local economy?
• Duration of stay
• Expenditure per day

7
Previous findings on voluntary contributions

• Laboratory experiments (public goods experiments)
• Two main types of contributors have been
  identified
• Free-riders
• Positive conditional contributors
• (e.g. Fischbacher et al., 2001 Fischbacher and
  Gächter, 2006, Ibanez et al., 2007))
• Field experiments
• Social information, anonynity and reciprocity
  affect donation to PA
• Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson (2007)
• Shang and Croson (2006) Donations to radio
  program
• - No information ? mean 106.72 USD
• - reference is 300 USD? mean 119.70 USD

8
Previous findings on voluntary contributions

• (ii) Donation as reciprocity to a gift exchange
  (map, sticker?)
• Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson (2007)
• Falk (2007) Funding schools for street
  children in Dhaka.

9
Previous findings on voluntary contributions
(cont.)

• (iii) Seed money
• List and Lucking-Reiley (2002) To test the
  effect of seed money.

10
Our main research questions

• How are the contributions affected by external
  factors?
• Natural field experiment
• Lab experiment
• (ii) What motivate the contributions?
• Survey information
• (iii) Is there crowding out of contributions if
  entrance fees are introduced?
• Choice experiment
• (iv) How does alternative payment schemes affect
  length of stay and expenditure per day? Is there
  an effect?
• Choice experiment

11
Treatments

• Changes in information (natural field experiment)
• Control group current situation
• 12) Information about the contribution and the
  use of funds
• Improvements in infrastructure
• Improvements in coral protection
• 3) Information about the behaviour of others
• 4) Information about park facilities a map
• 5) Information about seed/matching funding (lab
  experiment)
• ? 5 treatments with at least 500 observations
  each
• B. Changes in the use of funds in the park choice
  experiment)
• Promised improvements in infrastructure
• Promised improvements in coral protection
• C. Changes in the payment system (choice
  experiment)
• Only voluntary
• Only compulsory
• Mixed system

12
Some results from pilot study(Hellmark and
Nordén, 2007)

• A1. Changes in information natural field
  experiment
• In the pilot 2 different treatments were tested
• No information (as today)
• Oral information
• Deliver a leaflet before entering the park

13
Pilot results cont
Effects from different treatments
14
Suggested extensions based on pilot

• Possibility to donate to different pre specified
  causes (such as monkies, reef etc.). This allows
  us to test if contribution levels are affected by
  having pre-specified objectives as well as
  between long-term and short term objectives.
• A one treatment where a small gift (map) is
  received when arriving to the park.
• Since individuals expectations are more than
  fulfilled, consider to also give them the
  opportunity to donate when leaving the park .
• The leaflet works similarly to cheap talk. To
  test this effect as well as the effect of seed
  money, conduct a laboratory experiment using the
  experimental design developed by Fischbacher et
  al. (2001) to investigate stability of type of
  cooperation preferences.

15
More results from pilot (Hellmark and Nordén,
2007)

• A3. Changes in information choice experiment
• To test for the WTP for physical changes in the
  park a stated preference study was applied
• The following attributes and attribute levels
  where considered

16
Results (cont.)

• Example of a choice set

Mean marginal willingness to pay in USD
Attributes Mean MWTP Toilets and Showers
5.40 Information 0.50 Allowed
donation 1.80
17
Work to do based on pilot results.

• Is there a crowding out of contributions if
  entrance fees are introduced?
• Choice experiment
• In the choice experiment an attribute level named
  donations allowed was included. As shown above,
  individuals have a WTP of 1.80 to have this
  option available.
• The task now is to move from donations allowed
  to amounts donated, without loosing control over
  the design of the choice experiment.
• Laboratory experiment
• The pilot study did no include lab experiments
• A lab experiment to explore the potential
  crowding out effect from a fee should be
  developed.
• A lab experiment to explore the effect of seed
  funding should also be developed.

18
Time schedule

• - March June 2007 (4 months)
• To conduct an extensive review of previous
  research on this issue
• Consultation with park authorities
• Pilot study of the framed field experiment and
  the choice experiment
• Conducted by Anna Nordén and Ida Hellmark as a
  part of their master thesis.
• - July September 2007
• Analysis of pilot study
• - October December 2007
• Preliminary field work (focus groups, pilot
  applications of new, improved versions)

19
Time schedule (cont.)

• - January March 2008
• Field work for field experiment and choice
  experiment
• - July September 2008
• Analysis of results and first draft of papers
• - October December 2008
• Final drafts of papers
• Preparation of dissemination campaign

20
Policy relevance

• This project focuses on how to finance the
  development of policies for protection and
  maintenance of natural resources.
• In order to have a large policy impact, the
  following policy-oriented deliverables will
  result from this study
• - Workshop at the Costa Rican SINAC,
• - Report to be shared and discussed with local
  park authorities, the Cahuita community, and
  follow up in the implementation of our
  recommendations.
• - Two page policy brief.
• - Newspaper reports