Lowland hay meadow. Image downloaded from Pixabay 5/12/23.
Artist: meineresterampe – Pixabay.

By Ella Browning, Mike Christie, Mikolaj Czajkowski, Ali Chalak, Russell Drummond, Nick Hanley, Kate Jones, Jake Kuyer, and Allan Provins.

Read the full paper here.

We present results from a study that measures the economic value of improving biodiversity in the UK. We use an economic technique called “choice experiments” to do this. Choice experiments are one way of quantfying, in monetary terms, how much people value a change in the natural environment. Here, the changes we look at are potential improvements to the ecological quality of a wide range of habitats including heathland, coastal sand dunes, and woodland. We carried out a very extensive programme of pre-testing to help understand how the general public think about the wildlife found within these habitats, and what people understand about the pressures that currently have negative effects on habitat quality and thus on wild plants and animals. We then undertook a large, random sample of the English public, using a web-based survey. We asked each person to value potential improvements in biodiversity, described according to which habitat type, the amount of improvement, and whether large or small sites were the focus of conservation.

Most people were willing to pay to conserve biodiversity in England. The highest values people expressed were for those habitats, such as coastal sand dunes and lowland fens and meadows that are currently in the lowest abundance. What is more, people valued improving habitats from “minimal” to “low” quality much less than they valued a change from “moderate” to “full” quality.

This study can help policy designers think about what aspects of biodiversity conservation people most value.