Economic Valuation for Cultural and Passive Ecosystem Services Using a Stated Preference (Contingent Valuation Method (CVM)) Case of the Elgeyo Watershed Ecosystem, Kenya

Valuation of ecosystem services (ESs) can be typical as use values and passive use values. However, the prevailing conventional markets provide economic instruments such as price tags to ecosystem use values, but rarely on passive use values. This is limited since it does not provide comprehensive ecological values that will adequately support rational decision-making processes regarding ecological conservation. The study adopted the contingency valuation method (CVM) where three hundred and eighty households of communities living within the Elgeyo watershed were sampled. The findings recorded 97% of the population was willing to pay for the ESs quoted. Individual maximum WTP ranged between 1 USD and 57.1 USD (cultural), 1 USD and 95.2 USD (bequest), and 1 USD and 76.2 USD (biodiversity conservation). The overall mean maximum WTP was 7.4 ± 0.34 USD, 9.1 ± 0.49 USD, and 11.1 ± 0.68 USD for the cultural, bequest, and biodiversity, respectively. The multivariate regression (maximum WTP as a function of administrative location, education, income, sex, age, and livestock number) exhibited a significant difference regardless of multivariate criteria used, where Wilks’ lambda has F (75,203) = 4.03, p < 0.001 . The findings provide an economic value for nonuse values that can be incorporated in total economic valuation (TEV) studies locally as well as provide an impetus on payment of ecosystem services (PES) in Kenya.

Can nonmarket values be used as indicators of forest sustainability?

A distinction is made between the economic benefits of recent BC forest policies and their income distributional consequences. Changes in employment and tourism are examples of the latter, while economic surpluses accruing to recreationists and citizens as passive-use values are an important form of economic benefits. Recent controversies about the contingent valuation method for detemining passive-use values are reviewed, as are estimates of the values residents attach to the protection of forest amenities in BC. It is argued that constantly updated estimates of annual nonmarket values can be used as an economic indicator of forest sustainability, to be compared against the sustainable rent from logging operations. Key words: Indicators of economic sustainability in forestry; contingent valuation of forest amenities; recreation benefits and tourism