Economic Value Estimation of the Natural Heritage of the Tatra National Park

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the economic value of the Tatra National Park. The willingness to pay approximation was used. Additionally, a questionnaire survey was applied in order to collect data. It contained a hypothetical event, and respondents expressed their willingness to pay an annual entry fee to the Tatra National Park in exchange for a guarantee of stopping the interference to its integrity. The total number of respondents was 921. The results show that the income level has a positive impact on respondents’ willingness to pay for entry to the Tatra National Park. With the increase of fee, the willingness to pay for entry to the Tatra National Park decreased by 2.2% for every additional price increase. The resulting value of the Tatra National Park, with the limits of the presented research mentioned in the paper, is approximately 17.5 million €.

Estimating the Economic Values of Restricted Monoculture Eucalyptus Plantations: A Choice Modeling Approach

“…The findings also suggest that residents who better made choices of improved ecological conservation were those who had more income sources, were older in age and had more family laborers. This finding is consistent with the study by [ 67 ] who reported that income level and age of respondents had significant impact on WTP for the conservation of the natural heritage in Tatra National Park. Sex, size of land holding, and the number of oxen owned appeared with negative coefficients, implying that residents owning a greater number of oxen involved in cultivation of food crops preferred assigning a larger share of their plots to cultivation of food crops, than to plantation of Eucalyptus .…”

“…Similarly, the benefits from the exclusion of fertile plots from plantations and increasing the number of other tree species were USD 24.35/person/year and USD 125.82/person/year, respectively; the overall value being USD 205. Differences in attribute values have also been reported by [ 67 ].…”

Exploring Public Support for Bolivia’s Protected Areas: A Contingent Valuation Approach

“…Intuitively, the expected effect is that more visits to PAs in the past will lead to a positive effect on the WTP [30,31]. However, in this study, we found the opposite-the respondents who have visited PAs more frequently have a lower WTP.…”

“…The effect of most variables on WTP for visiting PAs aligns with previous studies. The profile of potential users of this type of product shows consistency, and in general, it has been demonstrated that younger people with higher levels of education and income are the population that are most interested and willing to pay [29,30], as well as those who have visited protected areas before [29,31] and those who are aware of the importance of conserving protected areas to preserve resources and biodiversity [29,31]. In this sense, this study corroborates other studies' findings regarding the feasibility of a one-year passport.…”