Economic Evaluation of Biodiversity Conservation in Nandankanan Zoological Park, Bhubaneswar, Odisha

Evaluation of ecosystem services evolved from the need of weighing societal benefits bestowed by nature in a completely unutilized stage vis a vis the benefits of resource development. We evaluated the monetary benefits of biodiversity conservation offered by the Nandankanan Zoological Park through contingent valuation techniques using stated preference involving 103 respondents. The results revealed the assigned value for the ex-situ conservation by the zoo habitat could be as high as 5.95 crores. The survey provided a hypothetical extreme situation to the respondents, and recorded the amount in terms of a range of value viz., <50, 50-100, 100-200, 200- 500, 500-1000. They were willing to pay annually to avoid such a situation. Ordinal regression analysis performed on the data revealed that age and changes in money spent at the Zoo were positively associated with changes in probabilities in the amount people were ready to trade off for the conservation activities. For every unit increase in age of the respondents, an increase of 0.04 of willingness to pay is expected on the log odds scale, holding constant all other variables. With respect to the money spent at the Zoo, Rs. 200 and above possess 2.45 times increase in the expected value of willingness to pay on the log odds scale, holding constant all other variables.