Entropy balancing for causal effects in discrete choice analysis: The Blue Planet II effect.

In this study the discrete choice experiment approach was employed in a survey of the Scottish general public to analyse how respondents make trade-offs between blue growth potential and marine ecosystem service delivery associated with the Mingulay cold water reef complex. Results indicate a higher willingness to pay for management options associated with the highest possible levels of marine litter control followed by the highest possible levels of fish health. Using entropy balancing, a multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies, we also test the impact that having watched the BBC Blue Planet II documentary series may have had on individuals’ willingness to support marine conservation activity. Whether or not respondents had seen the BBC Blue Planet II series was found to have a significant impact on people’s preferences. Despite this, the willingness to pay (WTP) does not differ between the two groups suggesting that such documentaries may impact preferences but not the final action of WTP. It is argued that the entropy weighting approach can be a useful tool in discrete choice modelling when the researcher is concerned with estimating differences in preferences between a group of interest and a comparison group

Organic Aquaculture: Economic, Market and Consumer Aspects

This book addresses, reviews and evaluates key themes in organic aquaculture and is set out to show how these relate to the challenges and bottlenecks for a responsible organic aquaculture production in Europe. The key themes reflect the main challenges facing the organic aquaculture industry: guarantee and certification system, nutrition, reproduction, production system design and animal welfare. In addition, it assesses the impact of new and future potential development of new knowledge to update and modify the criteria and standards for organic aquaculture. Organic aquaculture is an alternative production approach driven by the growing interest in sustainable utilization of resources. It is rightly viewed as an important contributor to the economy and to the well-being and health of communities. This work will contribute to the scientific knowledge that needs to strengthen effective organic aquaculture. The collation of information on research and data will be of applied value to researchers, university students, end users and policy authorities in the EU and worldwide

We may not know much about the deep sea, but do we care about mining it?

1. The way we value the environment affects how we treat it. While public awareness of human impacts on the ocean is increasing, industrial activities in the deep sea are accelerating rapidly and out of sight. 2. The underlying values we hold for the environment were increasingly recognised as an important factor in environmental decision-making, and it was thus important to evaluate public values towards deep-sea environments. 3. Here, we explored people's care for the deep sea and related this to the perceived risks of seafloor mining by comparing the deep sea to three other remote environments: Antarctica, remote terrestrial environments and the Moon. 4. We conducted an online survey to investigate symbolic values, which we define as the emotions, moods and meanings an environment evokes, as an element affecting people's care for the environment. In addition, we investigated the respondent's knowledge, worldviews and the perceived environmental and societal risk of mining in these four environments. 5. We found that symbolic values shape people's environmental care and that the overall symbolic value attributed to each of the environments differs. 6. People perceived it likely that mining will take place in the deep sea, and the majority of respondents (81%) stated to care a lot or very much about human activities harming the deep sea. 7. In comparison to the other remote environments, in a general sense people cared less about the deep sea, and their self-assessed knowledge of the deep sea was lower. 8. These results suggest that it was fundamental to account for the underlying values and emotions towards the environment when evaluating the risks of human activities in remote settings. 9. Our results further highlighted the need to improve public understanding and connection with the deep sea and its role within wider society to engender deep-sea stewardship.Peer reviewe