Natural resources damages from Chernobyl

In this note, we have reported a simple attempt to examine the stability over time of willingness-to-pay measures. By running a simple regression equation, we are able to explain why the average willingness to pay fell between two consecutively hunting seasons. The most important explanation is that hunting in the second hunting season was affected by the nuclear radiation accident at Chernobyl. Almost 10 percent of the hunters stated that their willingness to pay was affected due to the fact that their moose meat was contaminated. Since there are 24,000 moose hunters in the county of Västerbotten, we arrive at a yearly loss of about SEK 2 million for the county. Assuming that our figures apply also at the national level, Swedish moose hunters suffered a loss of almost SEK 30 million in the 1986 hunting season. If the same impact on hunters was felt for, say, 3 to 4 years, the present value of the loss caused by the Chernobyl accident could amount to over SEK 100 million (assuming a discount rate of 5 percent). This is a considerable amount, given that Swedish moose hunters constitute only a small fraction of all those who were affected by the Chernobyl accident.