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A global analysis of coral reef conservation preferences

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 1600–1606 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Coral reefs and many associated fish populations may cease to exist by the end of the century without additional long-term strategic conservation effort. This paper examines the willingness of the general public to pay for global coral and reef fish conservation in 12 countries of varying income and tropical reef proximity. We analyse preferences for several conservation measures, as well as the impact of individual-specific characteristics and preferences on conservation demand. Moreover, the role of scarcity in shaping this demand is explored. Overall, our findings suggest that preferences of the general public are not well aligned with coral reef conservation measures that are likely to be effective over time. Individuals are more willing to act to save reefs when they are in serious decline than when they are in moderate decline. They also prefer hands-on restoration measures in certain countries, which empirically have been shown to have varying rates of success, over expanding marine protected areas and strengthening legislation. We further find that conservation demand is highest in sampled countries where income is low. On the basis of these results, we draw key implications for policymaking decisions.

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Fig. 1: Global distribution of reefs and sampled countries.

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Data availability

The survey and discrete choice experiment datasets analysed during the current study are available from https://github.com/prn690/reefs. Data on country-level income are publicly available from the World Bank website: https://data.worldbank.org/. Data on exchange rates are publicly available from https://www.oanda.com/. Geographic Information Systems data used in the current study are publicly available from https://doi.org/10.34892/t2wk-5t34.

Code availability

The code used in the current study is available from https://github.com/prn690/reefs.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the BiodivERsA REEF-FUTURES project under the BiodivScen ERA-NET COFUND programme and with funding from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). We thank colleagues from the Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, for feedback on the survey and experiment design.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Economics, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Peter John Robinson, Pieter van Beukering & Luke Brander

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  1. Peter John Robinson
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  2. Pieter van Beukering
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  3. Luke Brander
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Contributions

P.J.R. conceptualized and designed the study, collected the data, performed the analysis and wrote the manuscript. P.v.B. and L.B. were involved in writing and reviewing the manuscript and reviewing the study design.

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Correspondence to Peter John Robinson.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Kristian Nielsen and Anne Nobel for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–6, Tables 1–6, survey questions, descriptive statistics, econometric method, regression analysis, welfare estimates and references.

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Robinson, P.J., van Beukering, P. & Brander, L. A global analysis of coral reef conservation preferences. Nat Sustain 6, 1600–1606 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01213-6

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