Abstract

Biodiversity has major economic value. Most of these values are often not captured by the market. Hence, the potential of biodiversity is often underestimated. Such an underestimation is considered as one of the factors for rapid depletion of biodiversity and loss of habitats and species. Valuation of bio-resources would facilitate in identifying the real value of genetic resources and obtaining a reasonably better share of the overall benefits of genetic materials to the local communities, who are involved in its management. Accordingly, the Economic Valuation of Lippia adoensis was conducted implication for ABS. The result of this study identified the direct and indirect use values of Lippia adoensis. Majority of the respondents (98.33%) were willing to pay for use values of Lippia adoensis. Moreover, (80.8%) of the respondents were willingness to pay for Conservation of Lippia adoensis. Furthermore, 95(79.2%) of the respondents were willingness to pay for non-use value of Lippia adoensis in the study areas. The cumulative estimates of willingness to pay for use of values Lippia adoensis were 30,437.50 birr with an average annual willingness to pay of 253.64±275.63 birr forLippia adoensis. The maximum willingness to pay was 1000 birr while the minimum WTP was 125 birr with range 875 birr. The value of R² for linear function (model) was 0.541, semi log R²=0.452 and double log R²=0.291.From the given result the linear regression function (R²=0.541) the one with the best performance. The R²=0.541or 54.1%, this means that the dependent variable can be explained by the independent variable. In this study, household size (Sig.0.000), income level (Sig.0.000), number of Lippia adoensis (Sig.0.044) and distance of the market (Sig. 0.051) of the respondents made a unique and statistically significant, contribution to the prediction of willingness to pay for Lippia adoensis. Of the nine variables, household size of the responders makes the largest unique contribution (beta=0.490), followed by income level of the respondents (beta -0.396). Therefore, because of its prospect for the production of many preservative, spices, aromatherapy, medicine and pharmaceuticals industry, bio prospecting companies require to access the genetic resources following the Ethiopian legislation of Access and Benefit Sharing.

Keywords

Lippia adoensis, Valuation, Willingness to pay, Dependent and independent variable, Access and benefit sharing, Ecosystem services, Total economic valuation, Total economic value, Use value, Non-use value, Direct use values, Indirect use values, Option values, Monetary terms, Biodiversity