Voluntary Contributions to Hiking Trail Maintenance: Evidence From a Field Experiment in a National Park, Japan

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  • Kubo, Takahiro
    Center for Environmental Biology and Ecosystem Studies, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)
  • Shoji, Yasushi
    Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University
  • Tsuge, Takahiro
    Faculty of Economics, Konan University
  • Kuriyama, Koichi
    Division of Natural Resource Economics, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University

Abstract

Donation is one of the most important solutions to inadequate funding for protected area management; however, there has been little agreement on the measures to be used to encourage visitors to donate. We conducted a field experiment in Daisetsuzan National Park, Japan, to examine the effect on donation behavior of providing information about two types of initial contributions. The first type of contribution is toward the fundraising campaign for trail maintenance and the initial amount of government funding (i.e., seed money) and information is provided about the target amount. The second type is for trail maintenance and information is provided on the value of one day's contribution by other participants. We found that announcing the seed money amount and the target significantly increased the probability of a positive contribution and raised the average contribution, compared with the control treatment of no additional announcements. When the participants knew others' contribution beforehand, the likelihood of a positive contribution increased; however, the average contribution tended to decrease. In conclusion, announcing the seed money and the fundraising target is superior to the other measures studied in this paper to raise funds in this specific context of protected area management.

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