Education and Scientific Benefits

One reason to protect specific ecosystems is to provide examples for educational purposes.

Gros Morne National Park has several programs in place to assist in the education of Canadians regarding the ecoregions within the park including: interpretation services, guided field trips and an extension program. The interpretive program at Gros Morne National Park includes campfire and evening programs, guided walks and traditional crafts. These events are offered all summer long and provide information on the features of the park. The interpretive staff also offers six guided field trips ranging from 1 to 2.5 hours in length. These trips are designed to involve Newfoundland students in learning about the ecology and geology of Gros Morne National Park. The extension program is provided in the winter months to fulfill similar objectives to the guided field trips. In 1996, 11,721 individuals visited the Visitors Centre and interpretive events and 2,378 individuals participated in extension programs. Care must be taken in separating the benefits of the educational aspect of these passive values from other indirect personal use benefits mentioned previously. For individuals who participate in any interpretive program as part of a recreational visit to the park, their benefits will already be included under the personal (indirect use) category.

Scientific research also provides benefits in understanding ecosystem function and determining the characteristics of specific areas. Such research is encouraged within Gros Morne National Park. Since permits for these activities are required, information regarding the degree of activity is readily available (see Appendix 9 for a list of research projects performed at Gros Morne

National Park).

5.3.4 Business Location

Business location decisions may be made based on community cohesion and a (non-business driven) desire to locate near the protected area. This latter effect may be due to the perceived

`quality of life' benefits from being close in proximity to Gros Morne National Park. It is uncertain as to the extent to which this is an issue for Gros Morne National Park. Community cohesion is enhanced by some of the services provided at Gros Morne National Park. For example, the establishment of the skating rink and swimming pool allow local users to remain within the community for recreational activities that previously required trips to other communities. Also, quality of life might be measured by a doctor/patient ratio comparison with similar-sized communities. There are three doctors within the surrounding area covering a population base of approximately 3,600 people. This represents one physician for every 1,200 people. This compares very favourably with the average in rural Newfoundland of one physician for every 1,500 to 1,600 people. Community cohesion and quality of life effects have manifested through a lower decline of population in areas surrounding the park compared to similar areas throughout the province. Surveys of local, provincial and national business can also provide an indication of the importance of quality of life and the monetary estimate that might reasonably be ascribed to Gros Morne National Park.

6. Summary

This purpose of this case study was to itemize, quantify and suggest ways to `monetize' the benefits to Canadian of Gros Morne National Park. The framework followed was suggested by Whiting (1996). The benefits fall under three categories personal, business, and societal — with many items identified under each category.

This case study detailed, for Gros Morne National Park, the specific items that ought to be included within the societal benefits category and indicated how these benefits conform to the Whiting (1996) framework. While this study identified the benefits associated with Gros Morne National Park, with emphasis on the societal benefits, it was beyond the study's terms of reference to provide detailed monetary estimates of these societal benefits. Rather, this case study described general guidelines as to how further studies could assign monetary estimates to the societal benefits identified for Gros Morne National Park. As well, some very preliminary monetary estimates of several of these benefits were calculated and presented for illustrative purposes.

As part of this report, the term `protected area' was described in terms of the categories proposed by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Gros Morne National Park has the characteristics of a National Park and a Managed Resource-Protected Area, as well as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As such, Gros Morne National Park provides protection of the unique ecosystems found on the west coast of Newfoundland, offers recreational and tourism activities, and allows for some resource extractive uses.

A categorization of the benefits that apply generally to protected areas was provided. In general, value is derived from protected areas through the 'use' and 'passive use' of the ecosystem.

The benefit categories and the specific examples relevant to Gros Morne National Park were itemized (see Appendix 3).

Personal benefits include use values (direct, indirect and future) and non-use values (option, existence, bequest — or passive personal use). Direct consumptive use involved timber harvest — valued at approximately $40,000 in 1996 — and other extractive uses which are currently not well documented. Direct non-consumptive use deals with primarily nonmarket, recreationai uses of Gros Morne National Park. As such, benefits can be determined through benefit transfer or the use of travel cost or contingent-valuation/state-preference surveys. Indirect benefits can be estimated utilizing contingent-valuation/stated preference surveys. Future use benefits can be determined using the current direct (and sustainable) use and indirect use benefits adjusted for the time value of money and population changes. Finally, the non-use benefits could also be determined using contingent-valuation/stated-preference surveys. A study has been done for the Pine Marten and adjusting to 1996 values indicates the existence benefits to be over $673 million.

Business benefits include all the tourism spending that is injected into the Canadian economy by nonresidents. Care must be taken not to use expenditures for travel which are already counted under personal indirect use benefits. Revenues for the park were $400,000 in the 1996/97 fiscal year.

These revenues were not categorized such that the personal versus business benefits could be determined.

The categories of societal benefits included in this study were: ecological integrity, health and worker productivity effects, education and scientific benefits and business location. Ecological integrity was measured using three functions: ecological processes (primary productivity, energy flow, fixing and cycling of nutrients, soil formation), watershed protection (groundwater recharge, water quality, erosion/flood control), and biodiversity (community structure, rare species protection, genetic conservation, keystone species). Using benefits transferred from another study, the ecological services of Gros Morne National Park provided $643 million in benefits in 1996. While this estimate was included as an illustration of a technique that could be employed to estimate the ecological benefits of Gros Morne National Park, more work is required before precise estimates

become available. Indeed, without additional research into this area caution should be exercised in interpreting this estimate, even as a ballpark figure. Finally, within the category of societal benefits, the following tasks have been completed: itemization of all the societal benefits; description of how to quantify each of the items (with actual measures where possible); and proposed methods of converting all societal benefits to a common metric (dollars).

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