Urban-Rural Divides in Preferences for Wetland
Land Use Policy 84 (2019) 226–237 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Urban-rural divides in preferences for wetland conservation in Malaysia T ⁎ Suziana Hassana,b,c, , Søren Bøye Olsena, Bo Jellesmark Thorsena,d a Department of Food and Resource Economics, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg, C 1958, Denmark b Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia Bintulu Campus, Bintulu, 97008, Malaysia c Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia d Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg, C 1958, Denmark ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: We examined the preferences for wetland conservation among urban and rural dwellers in Malaysia. A choice Dwellers’ preferences experiment using face-to-face interviews with urban and rural households was employed. Wetland conservation Flood risk alternatives were described in terms of environmental protection zones, biodiversity protection, recreational Biodiversity services and flood. Each alternative was connected to a cost for the household, which was a reduction in sub- Stated preference sidies for daily goods. Using a latent class model, we identified three groups with distinctly different preferences. Latent class model The first group comprised mainly rural people with negative willingness to pay for conservation, while the second group included mostly urban people who favored wetland conservation and exhibited positive preference for wetland attributes. The third group was also consisted of mainly urban people who exhibited both negative and positive preferences toward different aspects of conservation. All three groups, however, asserted a strong preference for significant flood risk reduction.
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