Gulf of Mexico: In National Survey, Americans Say They'd Protect Gulf Biodiversity

The sanctuary is located in excess of 70 miles from the coast and it contains a line of reefs above underwater mountains, known as salt domes. The reefs house hundreds of marine species, such as manta rays, sea turtles, whale sharks and types of coral that are threatened.

The sanctuary contains three banks, or reefs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administers the site and has proposed expanding the boundaries of all three reefs and including nine additional banks within the sanctuary.

In the 2012 national online survey, researchers found that the range that participants were willing to pay is $35 to $107 more than current taxes, according to a release.

"If we take the average willingness-to-pay amount and multiply it by all the households in America, you have a value equaling billions of dollars over a five-year period," Stefanski said in the release. "Even if this is not precisely correct, it far exceeds NOAA's estimates of needing $15 million in direct costs to manage the expanded sanctuary. This suggests there is strong public support for this type of biodiversity conservation in the gulf."

Respondents in the survey said that they value the ecosystem: "People indicated they wanted to preserve this site because they valued biodiversity, not because they wanted to go diving or fishing there or use it in some other way," Stefanski said. "They placed a value on preserving it for future generations. This speaks to the growing national awareness of the ecological value of the Gulf of Mexico and to all the issues going on down there."

The study findings were recently published in the journal Marine Resource Economics.

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