Abstract:
This thesis conducts a valuation of environmental benefits and an assessment of the social returns of investing public funds in protected areas in the Mixedwood Plains of southern Ontario. Costs and benefits were estimated for expanding protected areas in ecodistrict 6E-12, a region within the Mixedwood Plains. Benefits were represented by passive-use values employing survey-based methods of stated preferences. Costs were estimated with a hedonic model of land characteristics used to predict acquisition costs of land purchases necessary to expand the protected area network in 6E-12. Robust results indicate the public of Ontario is willing to pay to expand the protected area network. Cost and benefit curves for 6E-12 provide numerous policy recommendations for the future of protected areas including the optimal level of coverage that could maximize public welfare in Ontario and the cut-off point where the benefits of protected areas are equal to their costs of acquisition.
