Early exposure to nature and willingness-to-pay for conservation

Urbanization has led to a rapid decline in open space in the U.S. If an individual’s preferences are affected by their early-life experiences with nature, then the value people place on conservation may decline as nature disappears and more people lack childhood engagement in natural settings. This paper uses a choice experiment study to quantify the values adults in the U.S. Midwest would gain from a large grassland restoration near them and how those values vary with their childhood experiences. We find that people have sizable WTP for grassland restoration and that value increases with recreational features.  Furthermore, our adult survey respondents had higher WTP for nature if they had either active or passive exposure to nature in childhood. Thus, current-day open-space conversion could undermine public demand for conservation in the future, though intentional environmental education could interrupt that spiral.