Estimate of the total economic value of Italian forest landscape by means of contingent valuation.

摘要

The relative merits of different systems for estimating the economic value of forest regions are discussed. The VET system (total economic value) is based on all the benefits, direct and indirect, personal and communal, attributable to forests. The CV (contingent valuation) method takes into account people's willingness to pay for (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA) all those benefits; this method runs into problems in assessing the value of passive use, having been found to arrive at similar estimates for widely differing levels of conservation, a process known as embedding. Following a lengthy discussion of the many pitfalls involved in attempts to estimate the economic value of forests, including a detailed investigation of a national park area, it is concluded that research has so far failed to find an objective method. Results are skewed by the intrusion of the personal interests of those interviewed.