The Policy Relevance of Choice Modelling: An Application to the Ningaloo and Proposed Capes Marine Parks

One issue surrounding the use of Choice Modelling (CM) in policy is whether public and expert preferences diverge regarding particular environmental attributes. To investigate this issue two case studies use CM to value ecological attributes for the Ningaloo and proposed Capes marine parks in Western Australia. Public and expert populations are sampled, with consideration of information effects. Attention is also given to whether policy relevance can be improved by considering not only desired outcomes of the hypothetical policy options in the CM exercise, but also the management process used to achieve these outcomes. Preliminary results of the public sample identify significant impacts of both information and management process effects.