Ecosystem services are natural benefits that support the lives and livelihoods of humans and are classified as use and non-use types, for provisioning, regulatory, supportive and cultural features. For the valuation and pricing of intangible non-use ecosystem services, several methods have been proposed, including accounting for loss and damage, or compensating opportunity costs. This study attempts to value and price three distinct wetland ecosystem services, using perception-based contingency valuation methods, in the Asia-Pacific, namely Monkey’s Cheek in Thailand, an urban wetland, East Kolkata peri-urban wetland in India and the Tangaur Haor in rural Bangladesh, with contrasting socio-ecologies and economies. The perception of marginalised wetland inhabitants was collected by randomised sampling using Likert’s attitude-scaling tool. Results show that respondents mostly recognise ecosystem services as a direct influencer of cash flow. Sociometry and vulnerability indexing in 350 households showed that 73.67% of inhabitants of Tangaur Haor lye below the poverty mark, East Kolkata wetland inhabitants (index mark 64.86), are environmentally vulnerable, whereas urban inhabitants of Monkey’s Cheek are most resilient and recognise provisioning services strongly. In the other two wetlands, the regulatory services and supportive services are better recognised, owing to their dependence on the same. The present study also reveals that both in the urban and rural settings of Thailand and Bangladesh, respectively, the ‘willingness to pay’ (WTP) for recognisable ecosystem services depends on the income of the respondent, whereas household size or acquired non-fiscal resources (such as livestock, land or pond) do not determine the mindsets of users regarding their willingness to pay. However, the perceptions and vulnerabilities of the respondents change across socio-ecologies, and the pricing of ecosystem services mostly aligns with their household incomes. This study recommends strong awareness and capacity building among stakeholders in recognising ecosystem services, in the context of broader perspectives related to the given climate milieu.
Dey et al. (Fri,) studied this question.