%0 Journal Article
%T Using the Contingent Grouping Method to Value Forest Attributes
%A Pere Riera
%A Joan Mogas
%A Raul Brey
%J ISRN Forestry
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/359584
%X This paper presents the first application of a recently proposed stated preference valuation method called contingent grouping. The method is an alternative to other choice modeling methods such as contingent choice or contingent ranking. It was applied to an afforestation program in the northeast of Spain. The attributes included (and the marginal values estimated per individual) were allowing picnicking in the new forests (?2.47), sequestering 1000 tons of CO2 (?0.04), delaying the loss of land productivity by 100 years, due to erosion in the new forests area (?0.783), and allowing four-wheel driving (?6.5), which is perceived as a welfare loss. 1. Introduction Forest ecosystems generate a wide variety of goods and services not only for the forest owners but also for society at large. They provide a number of public goods, like enjoyment from recreational opportunities, nontimber products (e.g., mushrooms, berries, or aromatic herbs), carbon sequestration, erosion prevention and biodiversity preservation, among others. In order to make sound decisions for the whole society, forest planning and management ought to take into account the value of forests for both the landowner and the other affected persons. The field of economics helps in this process by being able to estimate the value, in monetary units, of the forest at stake. Their estimation could constitute a significant source of information for further forest policy design and the development of financial instruments. Forest valuation is often undertaken from choice modeling techniques. They involve surveying people and asking them to state their preferences among a set of alternatives characterized by attributes fixed at different levels [1]. These preferences may be stated, for example, selecting the most preferred alternative from a choice set (named choice experiment; see, e.g., Louviere et al. [2]) or ranking the alternatives included in the choice set (named contingent ranking; see, e.g., Chapman and Staelin [3]) according to their preferences. The different choice modeling variants, like the aforementioned contingent choice and contingent ranking, are able to obtain separate social values for different forest goods and services. Recently, Brey et al. [4] proposed a variant named contingent grouping (CG). It requests individuals to classify alternatives included in a choice set as ˇ°better thanˇ± or ˇ°worse thanˇ± a status quo or reference situation. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an application of CG in order to determine how Catalan people choose among potential afforestation
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.forestry/2013/359584/