Visitors' willingness to pay for an entrance fee: a case study of marine parks in Malaysia

Marine Parks are established to protect an area of the sea zoned as a sanctuary for the protection of its marine eco-systems, especially coral reefs and its associated fauna and flora, like sea grass beds, mangroves and the sea shores. In Malaysia, there are 6 marine parks to-date. Ironically, the establishment of marine parks also attracts more tourists to the areas. For example, the number of visitors to Payar Marine Park increased tremendously from 3,668 visitors in 1990 to 133,775 visitors in 2002. Environmentalists and scientists have voiced concern that too many tourists have adverse effects on the coral reefs. This study estimates how much visitors are willing to pay for two separate issues; first, to reduce the damages due to crowding effect and second, to reduce the damages due to inland development, of three marine parks in Malaysia; Payar, Redang and Tioman Marine Park. The willingness-to-pay estimates were obtained from the respondents using the Contingent Valuation Method. A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents. Then, half of the total respondents were asked to answer the crowding effect issue, and the other half was asked the inland development issue. For the crowding effect issue the respondents were presented with a hypothetical situation in which the park authority wanted to reduce the damage to the corals by limiting the number of visitors to half the number who came in 2000. The reduction in the total number of visitors is to be achieved by imposing an increased entrance fee. For the inland development issue, an increase in the entrance fee is intended for the authority to hire more people to monitor and enforce rules, to treat sewage and to implement coastal zone management and planning. Estimation was done using the double-bounded dichotomous choice method. The willingness to pay (WTP) per person per visit to moderate the environmental impact of inland development is RM23.79, which is lower than the WTP to reduce crowding, RM31.59. In addition, when both data were combined to estimate the differences between the WTP of foreign and local visitors, we found that the WTP of foreign visitors was much higher than the WTP of locals at RM39.11 and RM19.52, respectively. Analyses using the Individual Travel Cost Method gave quite poor results since two thirds of the visitors were first-timers. Therefore, consumer surplus cannot be obtained due to the insignificant result of the respondent’s total spending on the number of trips. However, using the Zonal Travel Cost Method (ZTCM), the average consumer surplus was found to be the same, RM1,000 for each park. The ZTCM was also used to calculate the elasticity of demand. The results for the three marine parks were found not to vary much, ranging between 1.07 and 1.36

The Valuation of Water Quality: A Conceptual Framework for Households’ and Producers’ Willingness to Pay in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Restoring the freshwater ecosystems has drawn global attention, governmental and non-governmental organizations around the globe incorporating several strategies to revive the last remaining free-flowing rivers and other high priority freshwater ecosystems. Rivers in urban setting have social, economic and ecological importance and demise of such rivers might affect many of its inhabitant’s life and living which has been established, survived and flourished over the years. Often, restoration of the river ecosystem seems challenging to the policy makers because the river ecosystem services have no price tag. Improving water quality program requires precise information about the costs and benefits which in urban areas needs to incorporate an integrated approach that implement necessary societal and technical measures. This study provides a conceptual framework using both households’ and producers’ willingness to pay for the river water quality improvement to acquire maximum information for successful restoration program. This study provides useful information which may help for further improvement of the water quality in an alike problem of developing countries. Future studies should validate empirically the proposed research framework. Keywords: Urban River Restoration, Households’ WTP, Producers’ WTP, Conceptual Framework DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-2-1

Labour force participation of rural youth in plantation sector of Northern Peninsular Malaysia

Malaysian agricultural industry is labour-intensive, especially in oil palm plantations. It is reported in 2013 that 69% of the total number of plantation worker in oil palm plantation are foreign and 31% are local. This proportion indicates the lack of interest of the local people to work in the industry which resulted in vast employment of foreign worker. It is believed that the cost of foreign worker recruitment has increased due to rising social and security problems caused by the foreign workers which incurred a hidden cost to palm oil production. This paper aims to investigate the factors of local young labour shortage in oil palm plantation sector in Perak, Perlis, and Kedah. Malaysia can reduce its dependency on foreign worker by identifying the occupational interest of rural youth in oil palm plantation. A survey questionnaire is used to collect data using random and purposive sampling method. A total number of 332 respondents from rural young labours staying in FELDA and FELCRA areas were analysed using Probit model. Results show the factors contributing to the probability to participate in oil palm plantation are age, wage, wage squared, gender, level of education, and mother’s occupation. Attraction factors that can possibly increase local youth participation in plantation sector includes improvement of working environment, job status, facility and benefit in plantation field

Willingness to pay for reducing crowding effect damages in marine parks in Malaysia

Marine Parks are established to protect an area of the sea zoned as a sanctuary for the protection of its marine eco-systems, especially coral reef and its associated fauna and flora, like sea grass bed, mangrove and the sea shore.In Malaysia, there are 6 marine parks to-date.The establishment of marine parks also attracts more tourists to the areas.For example, the number of visitors to Payar Marine Park increased tremendously from 3,668 visitors in 1990 to 133,775 visitors in 2002.However, too many tourists are thought by scientists to have damaged the coral reefs.This paper will estimate how much visitors are willing to pay to reduce damages to three marine parks in Malaysia; Payar, Redang and Tioman Marine Park.Willingness to pay estimates were obtained from the visitors using a double-bounded dichotomous choice version of the Contingent Valuation method

What makes a graduate an agro-entrepreneur?

Realizing the importance of entrepreneurship to economic development, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education has launched the Higher Education Institute Entrepreneurship Development Policy in 2010. This because, based on the 2010 Graduate Tracer Study, there is a low involvement (5.5 percent) of graduates in entrepreneurship, compared to employment in other sectors.This warrants a study to explore the factors influencing a graduate to become agro-entrepreneur.This study aims to identify these factors and also the characteristics of what actually make an agro-based graduate entrepreneur. In-depth interviews are conducted with twelve graduate agro-based entrepreneurs.The entrepreneurs are also requested to rate the importance of various triggering factors which are identified by previous studies. The factor rating results reveals that relatively, the most important factors are interest, satisfaction of being an entrepreneur, a sense of contribution to the society, generic skills (leadership, problem-solving, creativity and innovation, analytical, time and group management), social networking and taking-up of entrepreneur courses (after completing undergraduate studies); whereas, formal entrepreneur education, either at the degree, diploma or certificate level, is the least important. Results of in-depth interviews reveal that the characteristics of a graduate agro-based entrepreneur include those such as the right attitude, open mindedness, willingness to learn and face challenges, diligence, and good social networking

The role of microfinance in poverty alleviation: empirical evidence from South-West Nigeria

Microfinance programme has been generally regarded as a development strategy that can enhance the economic performance of the poor.The government of Nigeria has made concerted efforts to alleviate poverty in the country. One of such efforts is Poverty alleviation through Microfinance loan but poverty still remains pervasive and widespread in the country especially in the rural communities. This study examines the role of microfinance vis-à-vis poverty reduction particularly in the South- West Zone of Nigeria.Data were collected through survey questionnaire in the study area.Descriptive Statistics together with Binary Logit Regression Model were employed to analyse the data collected. The result of the analyses revealed that microfinance loan made significant impact on the loan beneficiaries in the study area which lead to poverty reduction.The government is advised to provide more enabling environment to make Microfinance operations more effective in the country particularly in the rural areas. Microfinance Institutions are implored to create more awareness on their operations and make less stringent conditions for the loan accessibility

What impact does microfinance loan have on incomes of the rural poor in Nigeria?

The problem of poverty has attracted specific programmes within the circle of Government administrations particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of such programmes is the development strategy tool of provision of microcredit to the poor through Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Although the issue of the influence of Microfinance loan on poverty reduction has been discussed by some scholars, little efforts have been made to assess the impact of MFIs at the grassroots particularly on those who live in the rural areas.This paper therefore intends to fill the gap in literature by examining the impact of microfinance loan on poverty reduction through the dimension of rural poor income. To achieve this objective, the study adopted multi-stage random sampling technique to collect primary data through the structured questionnaire. A total sample of 1,134 microfinance loan beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries were used as respondents from three states in South- West Nigeria. Descriptive Statistics and Multiple Regression Model were explored to describe the characteristics of the sample for the study and evaluate the impact.The results revealed that microfinance has negligible income effects on the rural poor in Nigeria.To this end, the Government is advised to provide necessary amenities that will encourage MFIs to establish branches in the rural areas; and implement more supportive services like education and training on entrepreneurship and health facilities. MFIs should engage cheap labour available in the rural areas and train them for effective performance and easy penetration to the rural poor.

The response of crude palm oil mill to environmental regulation and information-based environmental policies

Environmental policies are crucial in ensuring sustainable environmental preservation. But tough environmental regulations mean little if society does not have the resources or will power to back them up. This paper investigates the firms' compliance to environmental regulation and their behavioral response to information-based environmental policies. Three crude palm oil mills in Kedah are surveyed to gather information on the companies’ level of compliance to environmental policies (command and control) and also responsiveness to information-based environmental strategies. Findings found that all three mills not only comply with the environmental regulation, but also applied some of information-based policies listed in Corporate Environmental Reports and Environmental Audit System

Key Factors for the Sustainable Production of Swiftlet Birds’ Nest Industry in Malaysia: A Case Study in Northern Peninsular Malaysia

Swiftlet bird’s nest plays significant role towards economic growth of the country and development of the industry becomes paramount. The objective of the study is to identify the key factors that contribute to the sustainable swiftlet nest production. A total of 223 swiftlet entrepreneurs were simple randomly selected from the study area. Descriptive statistics was used to identify the socio-economic characteristics of respondents and structural equation modelling was used to identify the factors that contribute to sustainable swiftlet production. Results revealed that most of the respondents were above 40 years old while almost half of the respondents have higher secondary school education. Livelihood assets, role of middlemen and role of institution were statistically significant in influencing sustainable production of swiftlet nest. These finding recommends for active monitoring and advisory services by relevant institutions and information dissemination about trainings to enhance producers’ technical knowledge on swiftlet rearing. Indirectly this will improve the physical facilities, financial management skill and social networking of swiftlet producer in order to sustain their production. Likewise, middlemen should be enlightened more about their role in the marketing of swiftlet bird’s nest and monitored by relevant authorities

Jaringan keselamatan sosial dan skim takaful banjir

Terma Jaringan Keselamatan Sosial (JKS) adalah agak baru diterima dunia di mana ia banyak digunakan sejak tahun 1990an. Berbagai definisi yang digunakan dan di Malaysia, terma Jaringan Keselamatan Sosial membawa definisi perkhidmatan yang disediakan oleh kerajaan untuk kepentingan masyarakat meliputi kebajikan, perubatan dan kadang kala subsidi kepada pengangkutan awam. Semasa pembentangan Bajet 2009, kerajaan telah mengumumkan berbagai bantuan bagi membantu golongan yang berpendapatan rendah, orang kurang upaya, ibu tunggal dan lain-lain golongan yang kurang bernasib baik. Selain daripada bantuan untuk meningkatkan taraf hidup golongan kurang bernasib baik, terdapat juga penubuhan satu tabung untuk membantu mereka yang dilanda bencana seperti banjir dan kebakaran dan bantuan kepada keluarga yang kehilangan punca pendapatan secara mengejut (seperti kemalangan) berjumlah RM25 juta. Pemberian bantuan ini berdasarkan kejadian, di mana sekiranya berlaku keadaan bencana, mangsa bencana akan diberikan bantuan mengikut panduan yang dikeluarkan oleh Majlis Keselamatan Negara. Kajian ini lebih menumpu kepada bencana banjir dengan memberi cadangan memperkenalkan Skim Takaful/Insuran Banjir sebagai salah satu alternatif kepada sistem yang sedia ada. Antara kebaikan skim ini termasuklah dapat mengurangkan beban fiskal kerajaan; dan dapat mempraktikkan konsep perkongsian di antara orang yang tidak terlibat dengan banjir dengan mangsa banjir