Large carnivores and naturalness affect forest recreational value.

Recreation is a crucial contribution of nature to people, relevant for forest ecosystems. Large carnivores (LCs) are important components of forests, however, their contribution to forest recreational value has not yet been evaluated. Given the current expansion of LC populations, the ongoing forest conservation debate, and the increasing use of nature for recreational purposes, this is a timely study. We used discrete choice experiments and willingness-to-travel to determine people' preferences for both forest structural characteristics and presence of four LC species in Poland (N = 1097 respondents) and Norway (N = 1005). In both countries, two-thirds of the respondents (termed 'wildness-positive') perceived LCs as contributing positively to forest recreational value and preferred to visit old forests with trees of different species and ages and presence of dead wood (i.e. natural forests). Respondents with negative preferences towards LCs preferred more intensively managed forest ('wildness-negative'); their preferences were stronger than in wildness-positive respondents and in Norway. Preferences towards wild nature were highly polarized and there were hardly neutral people. Our results showed a strong link between preferences for LC presence and forest structure, and reflected the dualism of human-nature relationships. This study highlights the need to consider the contribution of forests and LCs to human recreation services in ecosystem management policies.

From valuation to governance: using choice experiment to value street trees.

This paper reports a choice experiment used to estimate the value of street trees in the city center of Lodz, Poland, and the broader context of how valuation results helped to improve governance of urban ecosystem services in this city. Based on a simplified inventory of trees, we prepared a set of hypothetical programs which put varying emphasis on the different ways to increase the numbers of trees, along with different levels of a hypothetical tax that would have to be paid by respondents to implement a given program. Our study indicated that the 351 surveyed Lodz residents were willing to pay the highest price for greening those streets where currently there are few or no trees and confirmed the general importance of planting trees. The results provided an argument in the debate on the new development strategy for the city and helped to promote the concept of ecosystem services.

Determinants of willingness-to-pay for water pollution abatement: a point and interval data payment card application.

This paper shows a contingent valuation exercise of pollution abatement in remote lakes. In addition to estimating the usual interval data model, it applies a point and interval statistical approach allowing for uncensored data, left-censored data, right-censored data and left- and right-censored data to explore the determinants of willingness-to-pay in a payment card survey. Results suggest that the estimations between models may diverge under certain conditions.