Looking below the surface: The cultural ecosystem service values of UK marine protected areas (MPAs)

Abstract

a b s t r a c tRecreational users appreciate the UK marine environment for its cultural ecosystem services (CES) and their use and non-use values. UK Governments are currently establishing a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) informed by ecological data and socio-economic evidence. Evidence on CES values is needed, but only limited data have been available. We present a case study from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) follow-on phase that elicited divers' and anglers' willingness to pay (WTP) for potential MPAs. The case study is an innovative combination of a travel-cost based choice experiment and an attribute-based contingent valuation method. Our study design allowed us to understand the marine users' preferences from both a user and a stewardship perspective. Following the UK NEA's placebased CES framework, we characterised marine CES as environmental spaces that might be protected, with features including the underwater seascape, and iconic and non-iconic species. Our survey highlighted the importance of CES to divers and anglers. A wide variety of marine spaces influenced user-WTP, while stewardship-WTP was most influenced by management restrictions, species protection, and attitudes towards marine conservation. An understanding of key stakeholders' CES values can inform a more holistic and sustainable approach to marine management, especially for decisions involving trade-offs between marine protection and opportunity costs of the blue economy.

Marine and Coastal Cultural Ecosystem Services: knowledge gaps and research priorities

“…In this sense, even if one has never visited or interacted with openocean or deep-sea habitats, such areas could be valuable and meaningful to peoplehaving existence and/or bequest value -generating CES benefits to wellbeing such as inspiration, knowledge, or spirituality through photographs, books, documentaries, paintings, exhibitions, or even scientific publications. Knowing the extent and contents of these marine ecosystem depictions in the media, cinema, literature, and music (Coscieme 2015), can provide insights about the importance that the wider public assign to those ecosystems (Jobstvogt et al 2014b, Börger et al 2014). This notion points out to the difference between the presence of marine and coastal CES, i.e., their availability, and their valuation by different people at different times, depending on the perceived benefits they provide.…”

Sea Bass Angling in Ireland: A Structural Equation Model of Catch and Effort

“…For example, during 2010 there were 353,000 sea anglers in Canada (FOC, 2012), 884,000 in England who spent Stg£1.23 billion on the sport (Armstrong et al, 2013) and in excess of 100,000 anglers in Ireland spending e174 million, including on travel and accommodation (IFI, 2015). In addition to the economic contribution, sea anglers appreciate and value a variety of cultural ecosystem services associated with the marine environment (Armstrong et al, 2013;Jobstvogt et al, 2014). Continued sustainable management of the sea angling target species is important to maintain angler satisfaction as well as protect the associated economic benefits, which often accrue in coastal communities.…”

Forming shared values in conservation management: An interpretive-deliberative-democratic approach to including community voices

“…The territorial waters of the United Kingdom are amongst the most heavily used in the world, delivering a range of economically important ecosystem services that directly benefit industries and local livelihoods, such as tourism and recreation, fisheries and aggregate extraction (Halpern et al, 2008). These seas also provide important cultural ecosystem service benefits such as place identity and intrinsic and existence values of biodiversity for wider society (McVittie and Moran, 2010;Jobstvogt et al, 2014aJobstvogt et al, , 2014bBryce et al, 2016 this issue;Kenter et al, 2013;this issue, b).…”