Conference Agenda

Coastal and marine ecosystems provide critical environmental and socio-economic benefits but face increasing threats. Effective management strategies, including ecosystem conservation, restoration, and creation, are essential to safeguarding these ecosystems. However, public preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for these management types remain underexplored. This study employs Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) to simultaneously assess public support and economic valuation for conservation, restoration, and creation interventions in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia. Using a sample of 882 Queensland adults, we compare preferences across bundled and unbundled choice formats. Our findings reveal that when assessed independently, conservation is the preferred management type, with respondents prioritizing the protection of pristine areas and expressing concerns over ecosystem degradation. However, in a bundled format, support for all management types increases, and WTP estimates rise substantially, suggesting that bundling enhances perceived value and willingness to pay. These results have key policy implications, advocating for the integrated implementation of conservation, restoration, and creation efforts in environmental management frameworks. Our findings contribute to the Nature-based Solutions literature by empirically validating the relationship between intervention intensity and marginal value. Additionally, this study highlights the impact of bundling in discrete choice experiments, emphasizing the need for further research into the cognitive mechanisms underlying bundling effects and refinements in valuation methodologies to better inform ecosystem management decisions.