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Shark-diving tourism as a financing mechanism for shark conservation strategies in Malaysia

, , , , ,
1 School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
2 Australian Institute of Marine Science, Perth, Australia
3 Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
4 Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Agriculture and Environment, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
5 Faculty of Business, Economics and Accountancy, University of Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.3481v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Conservation Biology, Science Policy, Natural Resource Management
Keywords
Marine protected area, socio-economic valuation, shark sanctuary, enforcement, Semporna
Copyright
© 2017 Vianna et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Vianna GM, Meekan MG, Rogers AA, Kragt ME, Alin JM, Zimmerhackel JS. 2017. Shark-diving tourism as a financing mechanism for shark conservation strategies in Malaysia. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3481v1

Abstract

This study estimated the economic value of the shark-diving industry in Semporna, the most popular diving destination of Malaysia, by surveying the expenditures of diving tourists and dive operators through the region. A willingness-to-pay survey was also used to estimate the potential of the industry as a financing mechanism for enforcement and management of a hypothetical shark sanctuary. The study showed that in 2012, shark-diving tourism provided direct revenues in excess of USD 9.8 million to the Semporna district. These economic benefits had a flow-on effect, generating more than USD 2 million in direct taxes to the government and USD 1.4 million in salaries to the community. A contingent valuation analysis indicated that implementation of a fee paid by divers could generate over USD 2 million for management and enforcement of a shark sanctuary each year. These findings suggest that shark diving is an important contributor to the economy of the Semporna region that could be used as a mechanism to assist financial resourcing for management and conservation strategies.

Author Comment

This manuscript is currently under review on Marine Policy

Additional Information

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Gabriel MS Vianna conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Mark G Meekan conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Abbie A Rogers contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Marit E Kragt contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.

James M Alin contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Johanna S Zimmerhackel analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Human Ethics

The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

Human Ethics Department, University of Western Australia

Data Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

We are not submitting raw data/code

Funding

Partial support has been provided by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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