The study examined wetland valuation practice for compensation in the Niger Delta,
Nigeria. The primary data used for the study were obtained from questionnaire
administered on 120 respondent Estate Surveying and Valuation firms in the study area.
Personal and/or telephone interviews were conducted on the Heads of Department of
Estate Management of the various Universities offering Estate Management in the
Southern part of Nigeria, to ascertain whether environmental valuation is being taught in
the affected institutions. Equally, personal/telephone interview was conducted on the
officials of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), to ascertain
whether environmental valuation is included in the curriculum for professional
examinations. The primary data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential
statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17).
Relative importance index and principal component analysis were applied in testing for
the most important factors influencing the choice of wetland valuation methods in the
study area. Major findings of the study were that Estate Surveyors and Valuers in the
Niger Delta adopted open market (56.4%) and cost (27.3%) bases for wetland valuation
as against total economic value basis (16.3%) which takes cognisance of non-use value
aspects of wetland ecosystems, traditional methods cannot be wholly applied to the
valuation of wetland ecosystems because they cannot capture the value of attributes,
functions and services which are not traded in the open market, respondents in the study
area adopted methods that rely more on market evidence, except contingent valuation,
which considers evidences both within and outside of open market, only four factors have
major influences on the choice of wetland valuation method adopted in the study area.
These are availability of data (RII; 4.16), availability of substitute sites (RII; 3.49),
limitations of valuation methods (RII; 3.47) and people’s perception (RII; 3.00). The
study also revealed that valuing wetland resources in the study area is fraught with
various challenges including lack of data (87.3%, RII; 3.84), complex wetland
ecosystems (80.0%, RII; 3.75), inadequate government policy (69.1%, RII; 3.29) and
sophisticated survey design (63.6%, RII; 2.35). The study further revealed that only 5.5%
of the respondents took any course in environmental valuation during their undergraduate
school days. Also environmental valuation has not been included in NIESV Professional
valuation curriculum. The study equally revealed that there was no government policy on
wetland ecosystems. The study recommends that Estate Surveyors and Valuers should
adopt total economic value basis for wetland valuation instead open market value and
cost bases and also contemporary methods so as to capture both use and non-use values
of wetland resources. NIESV should include environmental valuation in the curriculum
for professional examinations and organise mandatory training/workshop/seminar on
wetland valuation from time to time to keep members up-to-date with the appropriate
techniques available. Also, Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria
(ESVARBON) should mandate Institutions offering Estate Management programmes to
include environmental valuation as a Course, rather than treating it as a topic, as is
currently done in most universities.