ABSTRACT
A review of the current economics literature reveals contradictory messages about the appropriate ways in which decisions about the environment ‘should’ be made. At one level, there is disagreement about exactly what is revealed by survey techniques that are designed to elicit willingness-to-pay for non-marketed goods. Thus it has been suggested that ‘whatever it is that is measured by aggregating random consumer preferences, the numbers produced so far fail to convince as adequate surrogates for social choices and ethical judgements’ (Lowe et al. 1993:109). At another level, no clear view has emerged regarding the circumstances under which cost-benefit analysis can be legitimately used to set environmental objectives, targets or prices to generate environmental output. This paper aims to explore these issues in relation to the setting of objectives and prices for Tir Cymen, the Countryside Council for Wales’s experimental farm land stewardship scheme.
