AN ECONOMETRIC-ANALYSIS OF DONATIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION IN CANADA

As provincial governments in Canada trim budgets, fewer funds are avai lable for environmental conservation programs. Many jurisdictions are letting private interests and/or users of the resource base help fund conservation projects. Thus funding for conservation is becoming more dependent on donations to environmental causes either through direct g iving of funds or through memberships in organizations. This study exp lores some determinants of private contributions to environmental cons ervation activities through an econometric analysis of donations and m emberships relating to wildlife habitat protection and enhancement. We use data from a 1991 survey conducted in the three prairie provinces that provides information on donation behavior, income, wildlife-relat ed activity, household compositions, and a variety of other factors. A double-hurdle econometric model is used to allow independent variable s to have different effects on the probability of donations and the le vel of donations. Our empirical results suggest that changes in the ec onomy will be important to donation behavior. Declines in participatio n and recruitment in hunting will also have impacts on donations to co nservation causes, but these impacts, although significant, may not be as large. However, consumptive and nonconsumptive activities may be i nfluenced by management agencies and used to bolster environmental don ations.