Mangroves and economic development in Tobago: incorporating payment horizons, choice certainty and ex-post interviews in discrete choice experiments

Howai, Niko, Balcombe, Kelvin and Robinson, Elizabeth ORCID: 0000-0002-4950-0183 (2025) Mangroves and economic development in Tobago: incorporating payment horizons, choice certainty and ex-post interviews in discrete choice experiments. Ecological Economics, 236. ISSN 0921-8009

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Abstract

Governments have long faced potential trade-offs between economic development and protecting nature. This is particularly true for tropical and sub-tropical islands where most mangroves are found. Motivated by Trinidad and Tobago’s central government’s prior hotel development plans, we employ a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate residents’ preferences for mangrove ecosystem services (ES) in the Bon Accord Lagoon and Buccoo Bay, Tobago. Preferences were investigated in the context of a trade-off between conserving mangroves and promoting economic development through a hypothetical hotel project in the study area. We use a Hierarchical Bayesian Logit Model, exploring two distinct payment horizons, 5 and 25-years, undertaken independently and also merged in models that allow for choice certainty and individual characteristics. We find that respondents have consistent willingness-to-pay (WTP) for mangrove ES and exhibit general insensitivity to the payment horizons due to perceived disbenefits associated with mangrove loss from hotel development. The DCE and ex-post (follow-up) interviews suggest that there is strong public support for policies aimed at long-term protection of mangroves

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute Geography and Environment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Date Deposited:	23 May 2025 15:15
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2025 21:55
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128167

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