Journal of Forest Economics > Vol 20 > Issue 2

Willingness to contribute to the management of recreational quality on private lands in Finland

Tuija Lankia, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Finland, tuija.lankia@mtt.fi , Marjo Neuvonen, Finnish Forest Research Institute Metla, Finland, Eija Pouta, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Finland, Tuija Sievänen, Finnish Forest Research Institute Metla, Finland
 
Suggested Citation
Tuija Lankia, Marjo Neuvonen, Eija Pouta and Tuija Sievänen (2014), "Willingness to contribute to the management of recreational quality on private lands in Finland", Journal of Forest Economics: Vol. 20: No. 2, pp 141-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfe.2014.04.001

Publication Date: 0/4/2014
© 0 2014 Tuija Lankia, Marjo Neuvonen, Eija Pouta, Tuija Sievänen
 
Subjects
 
Keywords
JEL Codes:Q26Q23Q51
Payments for ecosystem servicesRecreationWillingness to payWillingness to contribute laborContingent valuationLatent class regression
 

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In this article:
Introduction 
Willingness to spend money or work for environmental quality 
Methods 
Results 
Conclusions 

Abstract

In Finland, privately owned nature areas are widely used for recreation due to open public access. However, since landowners are not obligated to take everyman's rights into consideration when making management decisions, the recreational quality of nature areas is not guaranteed for users. We examined whether individual recreationists on private lands would be willing purchase management actions from landowners that influence recreational quality. In addition to willingness to pay, we assessed willingness to contribute labor to such actions. The results demonstrated that about half of the recreationists who participated in our survey were willing to contribute labor and about 10% were willing to pay to direct the management of their typical recreation site on private lands. The mean willingness to pay was 92 euros per year and the mean willingness to contribute labor 3.5 days per year. A latent class regression model revealed that recreationists were not, however, completely homogeneous in their preferences for the actions or in their preferred contribution forms. On the basis of the results, there is moderate demand from recreationists for management to improve recreational quality and the potential for local landscape management arrangements that allow individual recreationists to contribute labor.

DOI:10.1016/j.jfe.2014.04.001