Supply Of Protected Areas As Public Goods: An Analysis Framework

From the perspective of public goods theory, natural protected areas are extremely special because they undertake two completely different objectives: conserving biodiversity as well as providing recreation opportunities for the public. Traditionally, biodiversity conservation is viewed as some kind of pure public goods for its perfect non-excludability and non-rivalrousness, and definitely should be provided by the governmental sectors. At the same time, the view that tourism/recreation business should be operated by non-government organization or private firms to pursue maximum efficiency or profit is also accepted by most people. Thus, the provision mechanism of protected areas becomes a so difficult problem in theory as well as in practice. So many issues are uncertain, like, what kind of organizations should get involved in the provision, which is the most efficient, where is the financial source, and so on. Addressing these issues and making the proper institutional arrangements are essential for the efficient and sustainable development of protected areas in long-term. Researches pertaining to provision of protected areas are not rare in China. However, there are two common deficiencies in these researches. Firstly, a formal framework hasn't been observed in any research. In another words, different provision models have been analyzed separately and deeply, but so far they haven't been compared systematically and theoretically. Secondly, Chinese researchers commonly regard the provision way of pure government provision that adopted in developed countries formerly as the best choice. However, even in developed countries, the reality is changing gradually, more and more private elements have been introduced to the provision of natural protected areas. These issues interest the writer greatly. Is the pure public sectors provision really the best choice? What is the advantages and disadvantages of one provision model compared with other? In this thesis, the writer managed to answer above issues, formulate a universal framework to evaluate different provision ways and provide some comments and suggestions to the underway reform of protected areas provision in China. The thesis is organized as following. 1. Based on the public goods theories in public economics, the research object, natural protected areas, is analyzed and defined. 2. A series of assumptions and two evaluation criteria, efficiency and conservation, are proposed to formulate the basic analysis framework for protected area provision. 3. Apply the analysis framework to three basic provision models, pure governmental sectors, non-profit organizations and pure private firms, to identify their advantages and disadvantages. 4. Some assumptions proposed formerly are canceled respectively to expand the generality of the framework. 5. The framework is applied in the analysis of a case area, Algonquin Provincial Park of Canada. 6. Finally, the conclusions and deficiencies of the thesis are summarized as well as some suggestions on provision reform of protected areas in China.