ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC PREFERENCE AND VALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FOR KIRALA KELE WETLAND IN  SRI LANKA: APPLICATION OF CHOICE EXPERIMENT MODEL

Natural resources such as wetlands are lack of property rights and monetary values. Thus, it is a difficult task to condense anthropogenic causes that upsurge wetland loss. A significant proportion of wetlands in Sri Lanka have already been drained, in-filled or lost due to agricultural land expansion, urbanization and reluctance of legal enforcement. This has augmented the impacts on human well-being and biota diversity of wetlands in different ways. Managing urban wetlands in such a way that ecological and biological resources are conserved while satisfying human usage is a challenging task at present. Thus, the eco-system services of wetlands need to be quantified in monetary terms and the requirement of valuation studies has emerged in this context. Kirala Kele wetland is also such a degraded wetland that is quivering for an appropriate wetland management plan.  The embryonic trend of sustainable development of urban wetlands by developing wetland parks has recently initiated in Sri Lanka. The study considered this new trend and perspectives of the local public to suggest an appropriate management scenario for Kirala Kele wetland. To restore wetland resources and maintain human consumption simultaneously, this research attempts to provide new suggestions for a better management plan for Kirala Kele wetland, based on a valuation study. The choice experiment approach was applied to investigate the economic value of ecosystem services of Kirala Kele. Cultural services inherent in wetland such as walking facilities, bird watching, water recreational opportunities and education are mainly focused in the study. We conducted face to face interviews with 160 respondents from Matara and Thihagoda, which are selected using the random proportional sampling technique. The survey instrument used for the study was a pre-tested structured questionnaire followed by few Focus Group Discussions. Results convey that the public prefers to restore Kirala Kele wetland as a  wetland park over the current situation. The majority is willing to pay for wetland park  restoration and results reveal that many people are willing to contribute for wetland conservation as a payment for a government wetland conservation fund over the other payment methods. Respondents’ socio-economic characteristics such as age, years of  education and monthly income has a significant impact on their willingness to pay for wetland restoration. Results of choice experiment data convey that the highest Marginal Willingness To Pay value is recorded for the inherent educational value of the Kirala Kele wetland, followed by walking facilities, bird watching and paddle-boat service. The estimates of the RPL model shows that there is a heterogeneous preference among the  respondents for each attribute in the wetland park.  The information derived from this study would be helpful for policy-makers to determine  an appropriate wetland management scenario for Kirala Kele and other similar wetlands in  Sri Lanka.   

Key-words: Choice experiment, Wetland-park, Marginal willingness to Pay