Improving and conserving marine ecosystems to maintain and promote their sustainability and to enhance or protect biodiversity and ecosystems’ services and functions is clearly a necessity. The importance of biodiversity in supporting ecosystem services and functioning has been established; thus, the worldwide creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), the goals of which vary with location, design, management, and compliance enforcement has been increasing. This paper explores the opinions regarding the creation of MPAs in Italy, people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for the conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, and maintenance of MPAs. The results indicate that most people would be willing to pay an entrance fee to MPAs, that is, depending of the valuation scenario proposed the mean WTP for a visit ranged from about €5 to €21 per person, and preferred environmental organizations as the most trustworthy organization type to manage the MPAs.

显然有必要改善和养护海洋生态系统，以维持和促进其可持续性，以及增强或保护生物多样性和生态系统的服务和功能。已经确定了生物多样性在支持生态系统服务和功能方面的重要性；因此，全球范围内海洋保护区（MPA）的创建不断增加，其目标随着地点，设计，管理和合规性的执行而变化。本文探讨了有关在意大利创建海洋保护区，人们为保护海洋生物多样性和生态系统服务以及维持海洋保护区的支付意愿（WTP）的观点。结果表明，大多数人愿意为MPA支付入场费，也就是说，