Valuing forest biodiversity through a national survey in France: a dichotomous choice contingent valuation
Résumé
The study raises the issues of valuing biodiversity through a national survey to improve the national accounts. Biodiversity cum species protection was explained in a telephone survey. The willingness to pay (WTP) for forest biodiversity is estimated by a Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation (DC-CV) method. In the same survey, the households were asked whether they have recreational activities in forests or not. The recreation answer is not independent from the DC biodiversity question and can affect the estimated biodiversity WTP of households. The bivariate Probit technique is used to consider the correlation between the error terms in the two equations. Whereas the bivariate model is found to be better than the univariate one, there is no significant difference in the overall mean WTP estimates according to this model. However, regional mean WTPs highlight significant regional differences.