| Principal Investigator: | Dr Zoe Davies |
|---|---|
| Project dates: | 2015-2016 |
| Funding: | University of Kent Faculty of Social Sciences |
| Collaborators: | Dr Thomas Lundhede (University of Copenhagen), Dr Martin Dallimer (University of Leeds) |
Non-native species are ‘invasive’ if they have negative environmental or economic impacts. Of the 10,000 non-native species across Europe, 15% are considered invasive and cost ~€12 billion to manage annually. Indeed, invasive species are deemed to be one of the main threats to biodiversity globally. However, the human well-being benefits that non-native species bring to a country, in terms of how the general public might value them, have thus far been overlooked by the scientists and policy-makers charged with managing them. For example, the rose ringed parakeet now presents a considerable risk to Europe’s agricultural economy and wildlife (please see Parrotnet for more information on SAC research in this area). These issues have prompted calls to cull the species, yet many people want to see/interact with the pretty green parakeets in parks/gardens and actively encourage their presence. This represents a complex socio-environmental conflict. As such, there is a compelling case to quantify public preferences for non-native invasive species like the parakeet, benchmarked against native species (which can also be pests), to provide novel and useful insights to inform policy responses.
Choice experiments, a stated preference non-market valuation technique, will be used to quantify the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for changes in population sizes of morphologically similar pairs of native and non-native species. The study will be run across western European counties where the study species are present/absent, allowing us to explore how WTP may vary.
The broad aims of research are to understand:
- If people value species dependent on whether they are native or non-native
- The extent to which species are valued based on their visual attractiveness
- Whether people are WTP for non-native species, even when they are known to have environmental/economic impacts
- How the three points above vary across western Europe, if at all