Mangroves and economic development in Tobago: Incorporating payment horizons, choice certainty and ex-post interviews in discrete choice experiments

Governments have long faced potential trade-offs between economic development and protecting nature. This is particularly true for tropical and sub-tropical islands where most mangroves are found. Motivated by Trinidad and Tobago’s central government’s prior hotel development plans, we employ a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate residents’ preferences for mangrove ecosystem services (ES) in the Bon Accord Lagoon and Buccoo Bay, Tobago. Preferences were investigated in the context of a trade-off between conserving mangroves and promoting economic development through a hypothetical hotel project in the study area. We use a Hierarchical Bayesian Logit Model, exploring two distinct payment horizons, 5 and 25-years, undertaken independently and also merged in models that allow for choice certainty and individual characteristics. We find that respondents have consistent willingness-to-pay (WTP) for mangrove ES and exhibit general insensitivity to the payment horizons due to perceived disbenefits associated with mangrove loss from hotel development. The DCE and ex-post (follow-up) interviews suggest that there is strong public support for policies aimed at long-term protection of mangroves.

Niko Howai, Kelvin Balcombe, Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, Mangroves and economic development in Tobago: Incorporating payment horizons, choice certainty and ex-post interviews in discrete choice experiments, Ecological Economics, Volume 236, 2025, 108693, ISSN 0921-8009,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108693.