- Objectives
Governments are often left responsible for abandonment mine rehabilitation because the effective process of these contemned sites implies expensive undertakings, complex technological solutions, the involvement of local authorities and stakeholders, and the acceptance and recognition of the rehabilitation project by society. Nevertheless, rehabilitation is seen by locals as much valuable to promote the sustainable development of socio-economic depressed regions, which is the main characteristic of the regions where abandoned mines are localized. The success of such rehabilitation projects definitely depends on the overall acceptance and recognition of its total economic and social value by the society, besides the commitment of local authorities and stakeholders. One way to contribute to such success is to estimate all the monetary benefits, particularly the non-marketed social and environmental benefits that the rehabilitation projects of such contemned sites will definitely generate. In this paper we propose and discuss a contingent valuation methodology to estimate the non-market benefits of the rehabilitation project of the abandoned mine of S. Domingos.
- Methods
We begin by characterizing the rehabilitation project and define the marketed and non-marketed benefits that are to be expected after the successful implementation of the project. Further, a theoretical monetary measure for the social and environmental non-marketed benefits will be described, and an empirical methodology to estimate it will be proposed. A contingent valuation stated preference approach seems to be as the more adequate for the purpose. After a literature survey about other similar stated preference approaches’ based empirical applications, we will describe the main steps to apply a contingent valuation to the S. Domingos mine rehabilitation project. For each step, particular aspects emerging from the empirical application to the S. Domingos mine will be discussed and some solutions will be proposed for further effective empirical application.
- Results
We expect to obtain a convincing stated preference methodological framework, that will enable us to further estimate a money measure for the social and environmental benefits that the rehabilitation project of the Mina de S. Domingos will provide. This money measure can be seen as an additional incentive towards the commitment of local authorities and stakeholders with the project, and the overall acceptance and recognition of its environmental and social value (besides the more obvious economic value) by the society. Further, the monetary environmental and social benefits can be used during the phase of the Cost-Benefit Analysis of the rehabilitation project, to help the public authorities to take real sustainable decisions and so to promote real sustainable local development.