Andrew Amacher - ESPM 298
Reducing Fire Risk to California Spotted Owl and Northern Spotted Owl
Habitat in Oregon: How Much Would You Pay?
Armando Gonzalez-Caban and John Loomis
Introduction
The paper begins with the assertion that "Federal agencies with wildland
fire protection responsibilities are more aware of the need to incorporate
protection of a broader range of natural values beyond recreation into fire
decision making (Gonzalez-Caban and Chase 1992; Gonzalez-Caban 1993)."
Others values of consideration include:
existence value: people's desire to know that rare and unique ecosystems exist
bequest value: protection of ecosystems for future generations
option value: ecosystems will be available for visits in the future
The authors use California and Northern spotted owl old-growth habitat in
both California and Oregon as a model ecosystem. In relation to fire, "wildfires in
Sierran mixed-conifer forests may represent the greatest threat to current owl
habitat (Verner et al. 1992)." However, the USDA Forest Service in the California
Pacific Southwest Region receives little money for non-commercial timber fuel
reduction and current funding "is inadequate for the increased demands that the
California spotted owl management program will place on it (USDA Forest
Service, 1993: IV-56)." The California spotted owl policy implementation team
has recognized the need for nontraditional justification for funding fire
management of spotted owl habitat (CASPO 1992).
Contingent valuation is a way to quantify the public's willingness-to-pay
(WTP). Recreation, existence, bequest, and option values can be quantified
using contingent valuation. The authors justify the use of contingent valuation:
"The contingent valuation method (CVM) is recommended for use in benefit-cost
analysis performed by federal agencies (US Water Resources Council 1982), for
valuing natural resource damages (U.S. Department of the Interior 1986), and
has been upheld by the Federal courts (U.S. District Court of Appeals 1989)."
Thus CVM appears to be a useful tool for estimating the public's WTP for spotted
owl habitat fire management.
Four fire-prevention and control programs in old-growth forests were
tested:
- 2 for programs in 5 million acres of spotted owl habitat in northern and
southern California
- 1 for a program in 3 million acres of spotted owl habitat in Oregon
- 1 combined California and Oregon program
Participants were randomly called first to solicit participation and those that
agreed were mailed questionnaires. These questionnaires were tested in
workshops and the overall sample participation rate (to completion) was 49%
(358 out of 737 households).
Results
The demographics of participants were similar to those of California (Table
1):
Demographic
Sample
Age
Education
Income
Percent Males
California
46.43
14.50
$46,740.00
53.30
43.88
13.00
$43,307.00
50.00
Of those refusing to pay at all, 26.6% were categorized as protest responses;
meaning 73.4% found "the program and method of payment credible." Protests
are not usually included for computing WTP, but the authors included this part of
the sample to be conservative.
Table 3 displays the results for the 4 programs. All results displayed were
significant. The bid coefficients were all negative, meaning "that the higher the
dollar amount they were asked to pay, the less likely they would vote for the
program." These results mean participants took the dollar amounts seriously.
The CVM would be weakened if participants' responses did not relate to dollar
amounts. All of the demographic variables (Table 1) were insignificant (thus not
included in Table 3?). However, attitude values (existence, bequest, and option)
were "consistently significant in all equations."
The mean and median WTP were computed for the 4 programs (Table 4):
Mean
(90% CI)
Median
(90% CI)
CA Program A
CA Program B
Oregon
OR and CA
$73.10
($66-81)
$64.40
($57-72)
$79.40
($72-88)
$70.34)
($63-79)
$57.12
($51-62)
$45.83
($40-52)
$92.10
($84-101)
$78.58
($70-88)
Although Californians were willing to pay the most for the combined CA and OR
program, the value was less than the sum of the individual programs ($92 vs.
$136).
Table 4 represents the mean WTP for the sample. The authors then
expand the values to estimate the total amount of money Californians would be
willing to pay for spotted owl habitat fire management. This scaling up is made
more credible by the lack of significance of demography (Table 1) in the CVM
results (Table 3). The authors scale up the data in two ways: 1) Using the
sample average, including protest responses, and 2), Using a more conservative
estimate by assuming all non-respondents WTP is $0.
Table 5 summarizes the total WTP for all of California:
CA A $/HH
CA A Total
CA B $/HH
CA B Total
CA/OR $/HH
CA/OR Total
Sample
Average
$73.10
$760,000,000
$79.40
$826,000,000
$92.10
$958,000,000
Lower
Estimate
35.82
372,000,000
38.91
404,000,000
45.13
469,000,000
The authors compute the value of the CA/OR program on a per acre basis. Eight
million acres of old-growth in both California and Oregon are designated critical
spotted owl habitat units. Using the sample average, this results in a CA WTP of
$120 per acre. Using the conservative estimate, Californians are WTP $59 per
acre.
The authors conclude that "the contingent valuation method appears to be
a promising approach to include a broader range of societal concerns about
biodiversity and ecosystems in public land management agency fire decisions."
Interpreting the policy implications, the authors conclude that "the Forest Service
can show that in economic efficiency terms they can spend at least $59 to $120
an acre to protect the California and Oregon northern spotted owl critical habitat
from fire."
References - All references from the paper.