Chileans’ Willingness to Pay for Protected Areas

Chile is one of the ten most underfunded countries for conservation of protected areas in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated protected areas’ funding situation by severely reducing tourism revenues. This paper studies whether Chilean households would be willing to support protected areas through donations or tariffs. Using a contingent valuation approach, we find that about half of Chileans are willing to pay either US$ 6 or US$ 8 per month, depending on the type of payment vehicle, to improve management in protected areas. However, in the case of the tariff, assuming that all households would pay this amount for conservation, we find that this policy would reduce households’ available income. As an alternative, we propose to lower its value to the lower bid, US$ 0.7 per month. Based on the demand curve, this amount is acceptable by 74% of Chile’s households and would cover about 70% of the current funding gap, considering the basic daily needs