De facto Access Right and People’s Preference to Conserve Biodiversity at Micro level: A Study from India

The argument that the use rights arising out of the conventional arrangements play an important role in the degradation of protected areas has motivated this paper. This study adopting a dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey among the urban people in Kerala, India examines the preference and value to conserve biodiversity in Periyar Tiger Reserve, India where different types of de facto user rights exists. It has been found that although such de facto rights like pilgrimage leads to the degradation of the reserve, the preference and value elicitation shows that there is scope for improving biodiversity conservation by paying due attention to the preference and value of those who exercise or perceive informal property rights over the resource. This is very important in such socio-cultural context where the total ban of such activities is impossible or ineffective. It is urged that with the design of appropriate institutional mechanisms perhaps such rights can be converted from resource degrading in nature to that of resource conserving one.