Recreational Value Of Forests Research Articles

The Growth of Mountain Tourism in a Traditional Forest Area of Greece

The recreational value of forests in mountain areas creates significant potential for local growth. Indeed, in recent decades, it has been noted that there has been an increase in the popularity of forests recognized as tourism destinations with a strong recreational importance. In the forest area of Metsovo, the locals are aware of the role of tourism in local growth, and it is considered, along with forestry and livestock farming, as the major critical advantage for sustainable development. Research Highlights: Although the locals are satisfied with the quality of their lives, they consider that mountain tourism should be enhanced with certain prerequisites, such as forest infrastructure and improvement of the road network. Background and Objectives: The case study aims to examine and interpret the locals’ views in the mountain area of Metsovo on different factors that are able to support and encourage the growth of mountain tourism. Materials and Methods: Simple random sampling was applied, and data collection took place in 2018. In order to analyze and synthesize the locals’ views, reliability, factor, and hierarchical cluster analyses were used. Results: The main findings of the survey indicate that according to the locals’ views, there is a need for strategic organization addressing primarily forest recreation infrastructures from the Forest Service. Conclusions: The locals’ views are focused on mountain tourism-related exploitation with the aim of forest recreation infrastructures. Indeed, the locals acknowledge the important role of the forest service in conservation schemes, but they also identify that there are forest recreational potentials in their area that need to be enhanced by the central administration and locally by the Forest Service.

The recreational value of forests under different management systems

Forest degradation is a severe threat to the provision of ecosystem services, such as timber production, biodiversity and hydrogeological protection. Forest abandonment is one of the main causes of forest degradation in Mediterranean areas where the low value-added of forest activities affects economic sustainability. This issue requires urgent restoration actions which must be supported by cost–benefit analysis that comprises all forestry activities that generate income, including the recreational ones. In effect, while the impact of forest management systems on timber production is well studied, the impact of recreational values is not. The present article intends to demonstrate that different forms of forest management result in a differing willingness to pay (WTP) for maintaining the recreational use of forests. We collected 248 questionnaires from respondents who confirmed their WTP for the maintenance of the recreational function of forests under three management systems: coppice, active conversion to high forest, and the natural evolution of forests. Moreover, we tested the influence of certain socio-demographic variables on individual WTP. Users elicited a high preference for conversion to high forest, while natural evolution was the least preferred management system. Moreover, males and users with higher levels of education had a greater WTP for conversion to the high forest approach.

The attractiveness of forests: preferences and perceptions in a mountain community in Italy

The analysis of the perception and preferences of local communities is a fundamental aspect to increase the social sustainability and to reduce the conflicts between forest users. The knowledge of people’s perception of forest resources is important for decision makers, when implementing management strategies and this is particularly relevant in mountainous area, characterized by a strong link between local communities and forest. The paper focuses on the analysis of people’s perception and preferences regarding the recreational value of forests. The research has been carried out by means of a case study, the Municipality of Trento, located in the Centre East sector of the Italian Alps. This area was chosen on the grounds of its geographical location and of the historical links that exist between local communities and forest resources. The sample included 1,000 randomly selected families and the method of investigation used was a structured selfreported questionnaire. The data were processed taking into account the relationship between people’s perception and the main social characteristics of respondents (gender and age); this allowed statistical differences among groups to be highlighted. Forest attractiveness has been investigated considering: (i) forest accessibility, (ii) forest stand characteristics, (iii) visitor facilities and infrastructures. The results show that people prefer the open mixed forests with an irregular structure and some visitor facilities such as paths and refreshment points. Besides, people like to have facilities in the forests, but at the same time would like these forests to be little frequented by other visitors, in order to have a greater feeling of naturalness.

Forest Values and Forest Management Attitudes among Private Forest Owners in Sweden

The present study focused on how forests will be managed in the future in light of the increased emphasis being put by the public on the ecological and recreational values of forests, the trend towards an increased share of non-resident forest owners, and the increased female forest ownership. The value and belief basis of forest management attitudes was explored using a questionnaire sent to a sample of private forest owners ‘residing on’ (n = 995, return rate = 51.3%) and ‘not residing on’ the forest property (n = 997, return rate = 50%). The results showed that a share of private forest owners strongly value both the view that the forest should predominately be used for timber production and the view that preservation is most important. The proposed hierarchical structure of influence, in which the forest management attitude was influenced by values and beliefs, was supported in the study. The ecological, recreational, and production forest values primarily influenced the most closely related forest management attitude, even if some cross-sectional effects and some effects of socio-demographics were found, showing that the view a private forest owner has on different forms of management styles is shaped by the perceived multiple values of the forest.

La valeur récréative de la forêt en France : une approche par les coûts de déplacement

The recreative use value of French forests : An approach by the travel-cost method The forest is an important element in most countries and its multifunctional character explains its great value. This study aims at giving a monetary value to one of these functions that occupies a special place in our urban societies : the recreative use. We use the individual approach of the travel-cost method (TCM) from a survey made up of more than 4,500 households surveyed by phone on the whole of the French territory in 2001. This type of survey and the zero-inflated count data models used in the econometric analysis make it possible to take into account the non-forest visitors. To reflect the heterogeneity of forests in France, the sample is segmented into nine inter-regions forming coherent forest sets. Individual surplus per visit are calculated for each region, showing variations in the recreational value of forests in France (from 0 to 47 G ).

Applying the copula approach to sample selection modelling

The limited availability of tractable multivariate distributions undermines the validity of the standard parametric approach to sample selection modelling. Copula distributions can be very useful in situations where the applied researcher has a prior on the distributional form of the margins, since the modelling of the latter is separated from that of the dependence structure. The present article first presents an application to female work data. Afterwards, the approach is analysed in an application to contingent valuation data on recreational values of forests. It is shown that the copula approach is especially beneficial in case of strong departures from the hypothesis of normality.

Will Recreation Demand for Land Limit Biofuels Production?

We use a CGE model to investigate the potential of second generation biofuels production under possibilities of land use conversion from natural areas to agricultural land in the U.S, considering the recreational value of forests. We introduce recreational benefits of natural forests through "household" production sectors for hunting and fishing, for wildlife viewing in reserved areas, and wildlife viewing in other forest areas, based on extensive data available in the U.S. about those activities. We test the model assessing the land use changes and welfare impacts from a U.S. climate policy scenario. The new approach resulted in similar land use change as earlier work where land conversion was limited by an elasticity based on observed land supply response. The advantage of the new approach built here using recreation data is that it provides an obviously improved measure of welfare cost of policies that lead to land use change, because the preservation value of the land offsets the increased cost of the policy due to the restriction on use. The results are sensitive to the representation of people's willingness to substitute other inputs for natural land in their recreation experience, parameter not being well investigated empirically. The main contribution of the paper is not for its insights on biofuels potential but for the improved representation of welfare changes from models where the land supply response limits conversion.

Recreational Values of Forests

Recreational Values of Forests