Scubaism

Members of the public should be charged a tax of US$1 (Bt33) on monthly electricity bills to help save marine turtles in Asia, according to research conducted by the Economy and Environment Programme for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA).

Assoc Prof Orapan Nabang-chang-Srisawalak of the research team said the idea was initiated by focus group discussions in China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand between 2005 and this year.

Singapore-based EEPSEA was established in May 1993 to support training and research in environmental and resource economics.

After surveying 3,680 respondents across the region, the study shows that people are willing to pay only $0.02 to save marine turtles, even though they believe conservation is important. In addition, they believe they are already too highly taxed and do not believe that the taxes will be effectively collected or used.

“We therefore tried to assess people’s willingness to pay for conservation through an alternative payment vehicle like a surcharge attached to household electricity bills,” said Orapan.

The study suggested that if people could pay $1 per household per month, it would raise between $50 million and $135 million per year in the four countries and would be enough to create sustainable activities to save the sea turtle in the region.

The amount is more than the current combined global expenditure on marine turtle conservation by 162 conservation organisations, estimated at some $US20 million per year.