Seed Grants_hazarika

Aaranyak Small Grants for Nature Conservation in Northeast India

Seed Grants >>

Title of the Project: Economic Valuation of Elephant Conservation in Golaghat District, Assam.

Project Investigator: Hazarika Nirupam

Project objectives:

1. To find out the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of the stakeholders for conserving Asian elephants in Golaghat district, Assam.

2. To find out peoples perception and attitude toward different types of values associated with elephant conservation as well as to put the issue into context.

3. To compliment the managers and policy makers by formulating a proper action plan for elephant conservation.

4. To compare the WTP of the victims of man elephant conflict with those of the urban community.

Project Update (June 2007):

In the month of January 2007 a draft questionnaire was prepared and pre-tested on 20 individuals covering 10 urban and 10 rural people in Golaghat District. An open ended WTP elicitation question was used in the survey.

The Dichotomous Choice format of WTP elicitation question was used to find out the WTP of the people for elephant conservation. Three bid values viz. Rs. 500, Rs. 1000 and Rs. 2000 was assigned randomly to the questionnaire and applied to the respondents. It has been observed that some poor people in rural area rejected the bid only because of their very poor economic conditions. They might have their WTP for the good i.e. elephant conservation but refused to pay by selecting ‘can’t pay’ option in the follow up question. Had the bid value been a lower one they might have accepted the bid. Therefore the Dichotomous Choice format of WTP elicitation was discarded.

A range of bids starting from a very low annual amount to higher and higher amounts consequently was putted in the questionnaire. The result of the survey was found to be very encouraging. In this approach even the very poor people had the option to contribute a part of their annual income for the proposed trust fund and thus to put the desired value in money terms. It was also observed that the income effect could be found out because we did not make any variation in the different bid values according to income level of the respondents.

It was found that people in Golaghat district do have their respect for wild elephants and was ready to contribute if any concerted approach towards elephant conservation happens to begin. It was also observed that most of the people prefer a NGO on biodiversity conservation having good track records to carry forward such a concerted approach.

Elephants in its habitat

Crop damaged by elephant