Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Ecosystem Services in a Sustainable Rubber Agroforestry System within the Tropical Zones in Nigeria

Abstract

Ecosystem services are services provided by the natural environment that provides benefit to people and more so improves their well-being. These services are mostly intangible benefits which generates low or no actual monetary value, this has resulted to these services being poorly reflected in national regulations and policies by the decision makers. Thus, this paper focused on estimating willingness to pay for ecosystem services in a Rubber Agroforestry System (RAS).  Multi-stage sampling procedure involving purposive and random sampling were adopted using a structured questionnaire to select 240 respondents for the study.

Dichotomous choice-contingent valuation method of the Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) format and binary choice logit model was adopted to elicit the optimal bid amount for Ecosystem Services in RAS. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.  Result revealed that RAS contributed to the livelihoods of the people. Majority of the respondents in Edo (80 %) and Delta (79.2 %) States were willing to pay for the derived ecosystem services from RAS elicited through the optimal bids while 20 % and 20.8 % in Edo and Delta States respectively were not willing to pay for the ecosystem services in RAS. Total WTP per year were ₦74,565,369.6 and ₦43,033,105.5 while the respondent mean WTP per month for ecosystem services were N10.33 and N10.50 in Edo and Delta States respectively. Bid offered, income and education had a significant (P<0.05) negative effect while years of experience and attitude of RAS farmers had a significant (P<0.01) positive effect on the likelihood of bid acceptance of the WTP for the ecosystem services of RAS. These amounts represented the monthly monetary values of the ecosystem services derivable from RAS

This study concluded that respondents highly valued RAS and were willing to contribute a part of their income to ensure the continued existence of RAS, the study recommended that an ecosystem service payment policy should be formulated to sustain the multiple benefits derivable from Rubber based systems.