مزایای اماکن تفریحی از منطقه حفاظت شده دریایی : تجزیه و تحلیل هزینه سفری لوندی

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been proposed in many countries as a means of conserving parts of the marine environment. In some cases, MPAs may also confer recreational benefits. In this paper, a travel cost model is used to estimate the non-market recreational benefits arising from the Lundy Island Marine Nature Reserve (MNR). The estimated mean consumer surplus for visiting Lundy was found to range from £359 to £574 per trip. The designation of No Take Zone (NTZ) has also contributed to higher consumer surplus values. This result provides a strong economic justification for the designation of MPAs for recreational as well as conservation purposes.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are specially designated zones of the sea that are designed to restore marine ecosystem to the original state by excluding all detrimental human activities. While often imposed for purely conservation purposes, MPAs can also result in economic benefits to users of the marine environment. Economic benefits of MPAs can be largely divided into two parts – fisheries and non-fisheries benefits. In the case of fisheries, many studies have demonstrated both theoretical and empirical benefits to fisheries from MPAs (Ami et al., 2005, Dugan and Davis, 1993, Lewison et al., 2004, Sumaila, 1998 and Zeller and Russ, 1998). Studies concerning the non-fisheries benefits of MPAs have mainly dealt with nature based recreation and tourism within large-sized tropical coral reef areas such as the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia (Driml, 1997, Hill et al., 1995, Rouphael and Inglis, 1997 and Valentine et al., 2004) and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in the USA (Baht, 2003, Leeworthy et al., 2001 and Park et al., 2002). This study aims to examine the potential benefits of marine nature based tourism in the UK arising from the designation of a MPA. This information will be useful for policy makers when planning the designation of future MPAs in line with international commitments to protect the marine environment (e.g. under the UNEP Convention on Biological Diversity of 1993 and the World Summit for Sustainable Development of 2002). The study focuses on recreational demand in the Lundy Island marine nature reserve (MNR). This contains the first no take zone in the UK water. A travel cost model was estimated using count data regression techniques in order to measure the non-market recreational benefits of the Lundy MNR.