Preferences of urban dwellers on urban forest recreational services in South Korea

Valuing environmental education as a cultural ecosystem service at Hudson River Park

“…Most efforts undertaken to value education or other, recreational benefits of ecosystems have focused on relatively undeveloped terrestrial environments, such as national or state parks (Lee et al, 2009;Haefele et al, 2016). In contrast, few studies have sought to estimate recreational ecosystem service values in urban settings (cf., Sherer, 2004;Cho et al, 2008;Koo et al, 2013;Wolf and Robbins, 2015;Forleo et al, 2016). Nonetheless, it has been suggested that environmental education activities may promote biological diversity, and the self-organization of social systems surrounding the environment may promote resilience within urban natural systems (Krasny and Tidball, 2009).…”

Monetary Valuation of Urban Forest Attributes in Highly Developed Urban Environments: An Experimental Study Using a Conjoint Choice Model

“…Because of these known benefits, we adopted the CE approach to investigate the preferences of urban dwellers for the attributes of urban forests. In fact, this approach has been effectively used in investigating preferences or values of non-market public goods (e.g., urban forests, water, ecosystem services, and environmental diversity) in urban forest studies or related areas [25,30,[35][36][37][38][39]44].…”

“…In European cases, key attributes affecting forest selection were the phase of tree development, management intensity, and tree species type [31]. In South Korea, Koo et al (2013) [36] investigated the relative importance attributes (e.g., trail length, biodiversity, accessibility, environmental education programs, and slope) of urban forests that affect the use of urban forests by urban dwellers using an "entrance fee." The results of this study revealed differences in the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) among the various attributes and user groups.…”

“…In previous studies, urban forests have been shown to provide numerous ecological and environmental benefits such as enhancing water quality, improving air quality, conserving energy, carbon storage, reducing storm water runoff, and enhancing biodiversity (e.g., [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]). At the same time, it has been well documented that urban forests and parks increase property values and housing prices in major urban dwellers (e.g., [33][34][35]), and the preferred attributes of urban forests can be estimated in monetary terms [33,36,37]. Such knowledge and information could play a significant role in communicating with stakeholders during the decision-making process for securing sustainable urban systems.…”

Forest Policy and Law for Sustainability within the Korean Peninsula

“…In accordance with the SFM paradigm to maximize multi-functional forest resources, urban forest policies have been introduced in South Korea since the late 1990s [36] Following the plan, central and local governments are constructing and managing various types of urban forests (e.g., street trees, urban parks and school forests) [37] (p. 201). As of 2011, a total of 10.8 million seedlings have been planted, and 957 school forests have been created [38].…”