Valuing coastal recreation and the visual intrusion from commercial activities in Arctic Norway

Abstract

The coastal zone in the Arctic is being extensively used for recreational activities. Simultaneously, there is an increasing pressure from commercial activities. We present results from a discrete choice experiment implemented in Arctic Norway, revealing how households in this region make trade-offs between recreational activities and commercial developments in the coastal zone. Our results show that, although people prefer stricter regulation of commercial activities, they welcome expansion in marine industries like aquaculture and marine fishing tourism. We also find evidence of high willingness-to-pay for new jobs; and this may partly explain the preferences for the commercial facilities in spite of the visual intrusion they create. On the other hand people expressed a clear dislike for littering of the beaches. Hence, the message to policy makers is to allow for commercial development in the coastal zone, but only under strict regulations, especially related to measures reducing the amount of marine debris.

Broadening the scope of resources in nature: an explorative study of nature-based tourism firms

“…This value is not solely economic, but also emotional, social, and cultural, as humans connect to and interact with natural elements (Faarlund et al, 2007;Kellert, 1997;Powell et al, 2009). Through outdoor recreation, the economic and social acceptance of using specific resources in nature to perform activities bestow upon these resources social, cultural, and economic value (Aanesen et al, 2018;Clawson & Knetsch, 1966;Margaryan et al, 2018;Navrud & Strand, 2018). As a consequence, when recreational activities are organized and charged for by tourism firms (Margaryan & Fredman, 2017), the commercial value of the resources, as inputs to the tourism production process, increases (Dissart & Marcouiller, 2012;Smith, 1994), which also is recognized through the experience economy (Jensen & Prebensen, 2015;Pine & Gilmore, 2015).…”

Trading Off Co-produced Marine Ecosystem Services: Natural Resource Industries Versus Other Use and Non-use Ecosystem Service Values

“…The only large, urban center in the region is the city of Tromsø, and from previous studies on preferences for recreational ESs in Arctic Norway we know that respondents from this city state preferences significantly different to the average of the region (Aanesen et al, 2018). Thus we split the two datasets in two sub-sets, one containing only respondents from Tromsø, and the other all other respondents.…”

“…This seems somewhat counterintuitive, as we had expected that people would prefer lower reductions in recreational catches to higher ones. In a small follow-up face-to-face survey, applying the same questionnaire, we asked people about how they understood the RecHarv attribute, and about half of these respondents said they assumed this was recreational catches for tourists (Aanesen et al, 2018). In such a context, a positive sign for the RecHarv attribute coefficient is as expected, as it indicates a preference for higher reduction in catches for tourist fishers.…”

“…Arctic Norway differs from southern parts of Norway by offering more space per inhabitant, vast access to natural resources and outdoor recreational activities. Inhabitants in the region make extensive use of the nature and natural resources both for recreational and subsistence purposes (Aanesen et al, 2018). On the other hand, the region is also characterized by an economy heavily dependent on natural resource extraction, and public employment (Statistics Norway, 2018).…”

“…The other study is a CE split sample survey assessing coastal recreational activities versus expansions in tourism and aquaculture industries in Arctic Norway. Some of the data in each of the two studies used here has been published earlier, separately (Sandorf et al, 2016;Aanesen et al, 2018).…”