Welcome to the Conservation Finance Guide. The overall goal is to provide practical tools to support the rapid expansion of sustainable finance mechanisms that generate long-term funding for biodiversity conservation.
Welcome to the Conservation Finance Guide. The overall goal is to provide practical tools to support the rapid expansion of sustainable finance mechanisms that generate long-term funding for biodiversity conservation.
Entrance and activity fees are charged to tourists for access to a protected area (PA) or natural site of interest, use of its facilities, or participation in specific site-based recreational activities. This user fee mechanism is derived from the ‘user-pays’ principle; tourists gain value in experiencing PAs and sites of interest, and charging fees for that experience captures a part of that value. If revenues can be retained by a PA system directly – through a park account or environmental/conservation trust fund – or otherwise earmarked (ringfenced) for conservation use, these revenues can be an essential source of financing for PAs and other natural sites. Fees can also be structured to promote social objectives, such as recreation and education, and used as a tool for visitor management. The two types of fees can be categorized as follows:
Entrance fees: Fees charged to tourists for access to or use of facilities inside a PA or natural site of interest. For example, the Galapagos National Park charges entrance fees up to US$100 per person, depending on age and nationality, 45 percent of which goes directly back to the Galapagos National Park Service. This generated approximately US$10.5 million in total revenues in 2006 and supplied 46 percent of the park’s budget requirements (Epler 2007).
Activity fees: Fees charged to tourists to participate in a recreational activity in a PA or natural site of interest – including, for example: scuba diving, snorkelling, camping, mooring a boat, hiking, wildlife viewing, etc. For example, Bonaire National Marine Park operates a ‘Nature Fee’ system for scuba diving and other water-based activities (up to US$25 per person). The park is financed solely through these fees, and legislation requires that revenues from the fees be used for management of the park (DCNA 2014).
These two solutions can be used in combination and together with other complementary financing tools. This entry focuses on financing PAs through entrance and activity fees, but revenues can be channelled into other conservation efforts, such as species conservation at local, regional, or national levels. There are a range of other finance solutions that capture revenues from tourism, including concessions, taxes, and donations from visitors and businesses, which are not featured here; neither are site-based revenues from activities conducted in and around PAs that are not related to tourism – such as research, film-making, and subsistence fishing and hunting.
Key design features of entrance and activity fees include the governance and management of the PA, pricing structure, social process and safeguards, ecological design, and use and use reporting of revenues (see 2.3 for guidance on design). Fees are mostly charged per individual (or per vehicle for entrance fees) and per entry, usually for a specified period (e.g. per day or per year). For example, Bonaire National Marine Park offers divers the choice of an annual or daily fee (DCNA 2014); South African National Parks (SANParks) offers an annual ‘Wild Card’ membership that gives an individual/couple/family unlimited entry to 80+ National Parks, Reserves and Resorts around Southern Africa; and Galapagos National Park charges a one-time fee for the entire duration of stay (up to three months; Epler 2007).
Fees are commonly fixed but can be set at a flat rate or scaled according to factors such as residency, income, age, and day of the week. For example, to enter the Galapagos National Park, foreign nationals pay US$100 and residents of Ecuador pay US$6 (Epler 2007).Pricing can also be differentiated by type of activity – sometimes with the aim of minimizing negative ecological and biophysical impacts of tourism, and sometimes with the aim of maximizing revenue generation (people are often willing to pay relatively high fees for specific activities, such as scuba diving; Depondt & Green 2006). For example, in Bonaire National Marine Park, non-residents engaging in water-based activities must purchase and display a tag (annual pass) which costs US$25 for scuba diving and US$10 for all other water-based activities (DCNA 2014).
Overview
1. Understanding Entrance and Activity Fees
1.2 Stakeholders
1.3 Potential in Monetary Terms
1.4 When is it Feasible and Appropriate?
1.5 Strengths, Risks, and Challenges
2. Methodology
2.1 Scoping
2.2 Feasibility
2.3 Design
2.4 Implementation
2.5 Monitoring, Evaluation, and Adaptive Management
3. How to Improve the Impact of Existing Systems
Appendix: Generic Terms of Reference (ToR) for a Feasibility Assessment