Economic value of marine biodiversity improvement in coralligenous habitats

Coralligenous habitats are an important ‘hot spot’ of species diversity in the Mediterranean and grant a variety of valuable ecosystem services. Currently, these areas are under threat due to human activities such as unsustainable and destructive fishing practices, environmental phenomena, and other significant pressures related to global environmental change. The coralligenous habitats are also endangered by practices that result in the presence of abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) at sea, a worldwide phenomenon only recently stigmatized whose impacts on marine habitats and coralligenous areas are serious. The aim of this paper is to investigate the economic value of restoration strategies promoted to safeguard and improve biodiversity in these coralligenous habitats through a contingent valuation survey administered to a sample of 4,000 Italians. Households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for biodiversity restoration and conservation ranges between €10.30 and €64.02 depending on the assumptions underlying the different models. The main positive and significant determinants of WTP are a previous knowledge or familiarity with coralligenous habitats and biodiversity issues, income, education, environmental attitudes, and the knowledge that indiscriminate fishing may be dangerous for biodiversity in a coralligenous habitat.