Economic Valuation of Diving with Bull Sharks in Natural Conditions: A Recent Activity in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Gulf
Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP) is one of the main tourist destinations in the Gulf of California, especially for recreational diving with bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas). This activity begun in the late 1990s after the National Park was created, the lo
- PDF / 2,381,509 Bytes
- 25 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 111 Downloads / 187 Views
Economic Valuation of Diving with Bull Sharks in Natural Conditions: A Recent Activity in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Gulf of California, Mexico Carmen Pasos-Acuña, Marco Antonio Almendarez-Hernández, Edgar Mauricio Hoyos-Padilla, María Carmen Blázquez, and James Thomas Ketchum
Abstract Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP) is one of the main tourist destinations in the Gulf of California, especially for recreational diving with bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas). This activity begun in the late 1990s after the National Park was created, the local community changed its main activity from traditional fishing to offer tourist facilities for observation of marine life; as a result, the economic benefits are now greater than ever before. However, these benefits have not been quantified or taken into account in the CPNP management; thus, the objective of this study was to estimate the specific economic value of diving with bull sharks by using a method of revealed preferences (travel cost) and calculating the consumer surplus (CS) of diving with bull sharks at CPNP as a tourist destination. We deducted the travel cost of each person per day through 250 on-site surveys directed to tourists who visited CPNP to dive with bull sharks. The economic analysis showed that the number of divers who travel specifically to CPNP for bull shark sighting represents C. Pasos-Acuña · E. M. Hoyos-Padilla Pelagios Kakunjá, A.C, La Paz, B.C.S, México e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] M. A. Almendarez-Hernández Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Marketing and the Patent Center, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Noroeste (CIBNOR), La Paz, B.C.S, México e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Blázquez (*) Behavioural Ecology Lab. Environmental Planning and Conservation Department, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Noroeste (CIBNOR), La Paz, B.C.S, México e-mail: [email protected] J. T. Ketchum Pelagios Kakunjá, A.C, La Paz, B.C.S, México Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste, La Paz, California Sur, México © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Ortega-Rubio (ed.), Socio-ecological Studies in Natural Protected Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47264-1_25
485
486
C. Pasos-Acuña et al.
23% of the total tourists visiting the park. The recreational demand function with the econometric treatment of the Poisson model revealed a CS result of $694 USD per person per day with an average of a 4-day stay. This information was useful to promote improvements in management and conservation of bull sharks at CPNP. Keywords Economy of the local resources · Diving with sharks · Marine protected areas · Tourism · Travel cost method · Data count
25.1 Introduction In the 1970s, Cabo Pulmo, in the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula (Mexico), was a small traditional fishing community; locals exploited the reef with traditional methods to extract fish for food or for ornamental trade. They also took tourists to sport fishing; hence they regularly caught several species of reef fishes, sh
Data Loading...
