IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v76y2020i1d10.1007_s10640-020-00416-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Worshipping the Tiger: Modeling Non-use Existence Values of Wildlife Spiritual Services

Author

Listed:
  • Adrian A. Lopes

    (American University of Sharjah)

  • Shady S. Atallah

    (University of New Hampshire)

Abstract

Several indigenous tribes around the world derive spiritual value from revering fauna and flora species. Species conservation is not a prime objective of such traditions but can be an unintended consequence. Conventional species conservation practices ignore this spiritual value and tribes are often evicted from protected areas. We use the existence value framework to develop a coupled ecological-economic model of the use and non-use, existence values of wildlife for a tribe that derives spiritual value from a wildlife population. We calibrate the model for the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Tiger Reserve in India with the resident Soligas tribe who consider tigers as sacred and back out an existence value of tigers in this reserve from a tribe manager’s perspective. The model ascertains tiger population dynamics under several management scenarios. Steady-state convergence is observed under secure property rights for the Soligas. Scenarios in which they are evicted from the BRT reserve and lose their property rights yields localized tiger extinction. Finally, we generate a marginal existence value function and discuss the potential for using existence value estimates in guiding conservation policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian A. Lopes & Shady S. Atallah, 2020. "Worshipping the Tiger: Modeling Non-use Existence Values of Wildlife Spiritual Services," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(1), pages 69-90, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:76:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-020-00416-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10640-020-00416-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-020-00416-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10640-020-00416-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Polasky & Erik Nelson & Derric Pennington & Kris Johnson, 2011. "The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 219-242, February.
    2. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2009. "Trade, Tragedy, and the Commons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 725-749, June.
    3. Bulte, Erwin & Rondeau, Daniel, 2007. "Compensation for wildlife damages: Habitat conversion, species preservation and local welfare," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 311-322, November.
    4. Astrid Zabel & Karen Pittel & Göran Bostedt & Stefanie Engel, 2011. "Comparing Conventional and New Policy Approaches for Carnivore Conservation: Theoretical Results and Application to Tiger Conservation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 287-301, February.
    5. Skonhoft, Anders & Solstad, Jan Tore, 1996. "Wildlife management, illegal hunting and conflicts. A bioeconomic analysis," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 165-181, May.
    6. Carolyn Fischer & Edwin Muchapondwa & Thomas Sterner, 2011. "A Bio-Economic Model of Community Incentives for Wildlife Management Under CAMPFIRE," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 303-319, February.
    7. Erwin Bulte & G. van Kooten, 1999. "Marginal Valuation of Charismatic Species: Implications for Conservation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 14(1), pages 119-130, July.
    8. Carson, R.T. & Mitchell, R.C. & Hanemann, W.M. & Kopp, R.J. & Presser, S. & Ruud, P.A., 1992. "A Contingent Valuation Study of Lost Passive Use Values Resulting From the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill," MPRA Paper 6984, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. F Alpizar & F Carlsson & P Martinsson, 2003. "Using Choice Experiments for Non-Market Valuation," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 8(1), pages 83-110, March.
    10. Eiswerth, Mark E. & van Kooten, G. Cornelis, 2009. "The ghost of extinction: Preservation values and minimum viable population in wildlife models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2129-2136, May.
    11. Davidson, Marc D., 2013. "On the relation between ecosystem services, intrinsic value, existence value and economic valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 171-177.
    12. Bandara, Ranjith & Tisdell, Clement A., 2003. "Use and non-use values of wild Asian elephants: A total economic valuation approach," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48961, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    13. Amy W. Ando & Christian Langpap, 2018. "The Economics of Species Conservation," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 445-467, October.
    14. Zabel, Astrid & Pittel, Karen & Bostedt, Göran & Engel, Stefanie, 2011. "Comparing conventional and new policy approaches for carnivore conservation: Theoretical results and application to tiger conservation," Munich Reprints in Economics 19669, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    15. Engel, Stefanie & Pagiola, Stefano & Wunder, Sven, 2008. "Designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice: An overview of the issues," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 663-674, May.
    16. Colin W. Clark & Gordon R. Munro & U. Rashid Sumaila, 2010. "Limits to the Privatization of Fishery Resources," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(2), pages 209-218.
    17. Alexander, Robert R., 2000. "Modelling species extinction: the case for non-consumptive values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 259-269, November.
    18. Skonhoft, Anders, 1998. "Resource utilization, property rights and welfare--Wildlife and the local people," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 67-80, July.
    19. Mallory, Mindy L. & Ando, Amy W., 2014. "Implementing efficient conservation portfolio design," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-18.
    20. Richard Damania & Randy Stringer & K. Ullas Karanth & Brad Stith, 2003. "The Economics of Protecting Tiger Populations: Linking Household Behavior to Poaching and Prey Depletion," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(2), pages 198-216.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Palola, Pirta & Bailey, Richard & Wedding, Lisa, 2022. "A novel framework to operationalise value-pluralism in environmental valuation: Environmental value functions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Birgit Bednar-Friedl & Edwin Muchapondwa & Precious Zikhali & Samson Mukanjari, 2012. "Evaluating the Prospects of Benefit Sharing Schemes in Protecting Mountain Gorillas in Central Africa," Working Papers 321, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Astrid Zabel & Karen Pittel & Göran Bostedt & Stefanie Engel, 2011. "Comparing Conventional and New Policy Approaches for Carnivore Conservation: Theoretical Results and Application to Tiger Conservation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 287-301, February.
    3. Anders Skonhoft, 2017. "The Silence of the Lambs: Payment for Carnivore Conservation and Livestock Farming Under Strategic Behavior," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 905-923, August.
    4. Häggmark-Svensson, Tobias & Elofsson, Katarina & Engelmann, Marc & Gren, Ing-Marie, 2015. "A review of the literature on benefits, costs, and policies for wildlife management," Working Paper Series 2015:1, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department Economics.
    5. Conrad, Jon M. & Lopes, Adrian A., 2017. "Poaching and the dynamics of a protected species," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 55-67.
    6. Zabel, Astrid & Engel, Stefanie, 2010. "Performance payments: A new strategy to conserve large carnivores in the tropics?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 405-412, December.
    7. Zijin Xie & Ayumi Onuma, 2021. "Biodiversity Conservation under ICDPs in a Bioeconomic Model: Nonprofit vs For-Profit National Parks," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2021-001, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    8. Mensah, Justice Tei & Persson, Jens & Kjellander, Petter & Elofsson, Katarina, 2019. "Effects of carnivore presence on hunting lease pricing in South Sweden," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Astrid Zabel & Göran Bostedt & Stefanie Engel, 2014. "Performance Payments for Groups: The Case of Carnivore Conservation in Northern Sweden," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(4), pages 613-631, December.
    10. Damania, Richard & Scandizzo, Pasquale Lucio & Glauber, A.J, 2014. "Ecosystems -- burden or bounty ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6890, The World Bank.
    11. Winkler, Ralph, 2011. "Why do ICDPs fail?: The relationship between agriculture, hunting and ecotourism in wildlife conservation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 55-78, January.
    12. Anne Borge Johannesen & Jon Olaf Olaussen & Anders Skonhoft, 2019. "Livestock and Carnivores: Economic and Ecological Interactions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 295-317, September.
    13. Damania, Richard & Scandizzo, Pasquale Lucio, 2017. "The Serengeti ecosystem—Burden or bounty?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 185-205.
    14. Ram Ranjan, 2017. "Tuskers, tasty crops and the forest tribes in between: managing HECs through financial incentives in human–elephant–forest ecosystems," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 79-95, January.
    15. Fischer, Carolyn & Sterner, Thomas & Muchapondwa, Edwin, 2005. "Bioeconomic Model of Community Incentives for Wildlife Management Before and After CAMPFIRE," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-06, Resources for the Future.
    16. Martin F. Quaas & Ralph Winkler, 2017. "A Market Mechanism for Sustainable and Efficient Resource Use under Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 6524, CESifo.
    17. Juan Miguel Benito-Ostolaza & Nuria Osés-Eraso, 2013. "Incentives to give up resource extraction and avoid the tragedy of the commons," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 1305, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    18. Gerling, Charlotte & Drechsler, Martin & Keuler, Klaus & Sturm, Astrid & Wätzold, Frank, 2022. "Time to consider the timing of conservation measures: designing cost-effective agri-environment schemes under climate change," MPRA Paper 113877, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Widman, Marit & Elofsson, Katarina, 2018. "Costs of Livestock Depredation by Large Carnivores in Sweden 2001 to 2013," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 188-198.
    20. Anders Skonhoft, 2015. "The Silence of the Lambs: Payment for Carnivore Conservation and Sheep Farming," Working Paper Series 16915, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:76:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-020-00416-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.