Estimating the value of natural characteristics of a National Park: the case of Mokala National Park in South Africa
Date
2023-01
Authors
Kriek, Carel Johannes
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
Due to the extreme decimation of species worldwide, there is a need to conserve and protect
more natural areas and biodiversity. A way to ensure species' survival across areas, is to rewild
a protected area or nature reserve by reintroducing regionally extinct fauna and flora, or
removing invasive species. In developing countries, these protected areas are generally
underfunded and underdeveloped, and therefore may have limited capacity to conserve the
wildlife, and/or rewild the park to its previous natural state. This study utilised a discrete choice
experiment to determine the preferences and ‘appreciative value’ tourists place on different
natural characteristics of the park, in the context of rewilding. This study analysed the
responses of 288 tourists from Mokala National Park in the Northern Cape, South Africa, using
online questionnaires. The respondent's preferences were drawn from the completed
questionnaires by the tourists who have visited the park since its inception in 2007. The natural
characteristics ranged from (1) reintroducing carnivores such as lions or cheetahs back into the
park, (2) removing non-native species, whether threatened or non-threatened, and (3) boosting
endangered species populations such as roan antelope, black rhino and tsessebe. A latent class
model was created to identify heterogeneity in the preferences amongst the sampled population.
It was determined that there is heterogeneity and that the sampled tourists had varying
preferences to rewild the national park to its previous biological state. Respondents of the four
classes, strongly preferred reintroducing cheetahs back into the park above a pride of lions. All
classes had significant preference for boosting the numbers of endangered black rhinos
compared to the status quo. Only 11.20% of the respondents wanted to completely rewild the
park by removing the non-native species and reintroducing all the other species identified.
Thus, 88.20% of respondents did not support removing the non-native species regardless of
their status, either threatened (sable antelope) or non-threatened (impala, nyala and waterbuck).
The results provide a basis that rewilding improvements could be initiated, and better park
management policies could be implemented, to attract tourists and more successfully rewild
the park . Yet, tourists had an affinity for more species diversity in the park above protecting
the natural ecosystem. Further research can be done to expand on whether there is a preference
for species based on their status, such as being endangered, iconic, carnivore, or megafauna.
Description
Keywords
Choice experiment, rewilding, Mokala National Park, reintroduce, non-native species, willingness to pay, latent class model