Valuation of Ecosystem Services Provided by Pigeon Island National Park, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Pigeon Island National Park (PINP) is a complex marine ecosystem, which is a part of extensive system of marine habitats in Trincomalee area. PINP provides a number of Ecosystem Services that include provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. Although this has been included under the list of conservation, PINP associated ecosystem is under the risk of degradation due to overexploitation of extractive users and additional pressure by booming tourism activities.
Present study makes an attempt to establish a gross, lower bound value for the conservation of PINP. This study has asses the willingness-to-pay for conservation of the resource users in the form of a hypothetical scenario of village level corporative society. The assessment was based on surveys covered at households (150) and visitors (170) separately. Key Informant discussions & Focus Group Discussions were also held in order to gather qualitative information with the relevant stakeholders.
According to the results obtained from the study, visitors are willing to contribute Rs. 68/= month and when this amount is extrapolated to annual basis it amounts Rs.60, 702,487.68 per year. Households are willing to contribute Rs.16 per month when this amount is extrapolated to population in Kuchcaveli DS division which PINP belonged to, on annual basis it amounts to Rs. 1,653,566.40 per year. These amounts can be considered in calculating national income to express the contribution from this pristine ecosystem to the national economy and hence improve the effectiveness of policy decisions.

Keywords: Pigeon Island National Park, Ecosystem services