ABSTRACT
If consumers have no awareness with respect to non-market biodiversity benefits, then there is a crucial and urgent action that has to be taken before the policy makers can launch the certification policy. Consumer awareness may take many years to develop (see van Ravenswaay and Blend 1997). Hence, the policy makers should launch extensive information campaigns, targeting the general public, as well as initiate formal education programs about the values and the benefits of having a clean, and biodiverse environment. Let’s imagine a country or a society in which the public is not at all aware about the need to sustain biodiversity and to protect the environment. In such society, there is no use in implementing a certification policy, because it is doomed to fail (see Salim et al. 1997). Once there is sufficient consumer awareness about the biodiversity benefits, environmental friendly products and management processes then there maybe be a willingness to pay a price premium for ecolabeled or certified products. In other words, consumer is a necessary condition for policy design. However, in order to guarantee the success, the policy maker will need also to deal with the nature of marker supply and the nature of consumer demand.
