Local Community’s Willingness to Pay for Conserving Terubok (Tenualosa toli) Population in Sarawak

• Main Author: Nur Athirah, Binti Bakeri
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2019
• Subjects: HB Economic Theory
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/27416/1/Nur%20Athirah%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/27416/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Over the year, the population of local terubok (Tenualosa toli) is being threatened due to over-exploitation. Terubok is one of the famous and important commercially fish in Malaysia which only found in Sarawak rivers. Nowadays, the landing of local terubok are very limited and difficult to obtain since 1980s. Environmental goods like terubok has a value to society, however, it is difficult to obtain and express these economic values in monetary terms as typically there are regarded as non-marketable values. The general objective of this study is to assess the monetary value that local people are willing to pay to conserve terubok in Sarawak. In order to realize the aims of the study, Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was employed. A total 1203 respondents involved in face-to-face interviews, which involved a simple random sampling selected for data collection. In the CVM method, a dichotomous choice CVM (DC-CVM) was employed to derive the respondents WTP for the sustainability of terubok. The logit model was used to elicit their WTP for the proposed bids. The results show that as the price increase, the probability of saying yes decreases. The estimated mean for the WTP is RM16, which indicates that local community are willing to pay at an average of RM16 per annum for the sustainability of terubok in Sarawak.