The Validity In Contingent Valuation Of Forest Eco-Tourism Non-Use Values

In the view of sustainable development, forest eco-tourism is a best way to take advantage of forest resources. It is not only improving forestry economy, but also improving resident's environmental awareness. With the rapid development of economy, the relationship between economic development and environmental protection is high paid attention. Consequently, there is a change in natural resources usages, from vast harvesting to save ways. As a result, natural resources valuation is a certain requirement to meet new resource business and management.Some environmental services can be valued using market price, but the other can not. In this case, contingent valuation method (CVM) is used to ask people about their willingness to pay for those good in a simulated market.CVM is widely used in developed countries for over 40 years and again a good appraisal. However, a large amount of case studies revealed the double about its validity and reliability, especially in developing countries.In an attempt to test the validity and reliability in application of CVM in Vietnam, the study of Vietnamese visitors'willingness to improve Bavi national park ecotourism resource non-use values is taken.From the study, some conclusions were presented:1) Bavi national park ecotourism resource non-use values was estimated at 2.17-2.35 (billion VND/year)2) Comparison between PC and DC elicitation format revealed that singer bound DC results in higher welfare estimates than PC, but double bound DC and PC WTP result are very similar.3) To scope effect test, the study using internal and external scope test and there is no evident indicate that WTP is not sensitive to scope of goods. However, the rejection of insensitive to scope in CVM should not be taken. For that, it is better to evaluate environment good value in separated manner.4) Information effect indicates the impact of information about the related environmental goods on WTP values. Usually, respondents obtained valuated goods information via a survey instrument or by using experiments. These studies discuss the impact of respondents'using experiments to their WTP. The survey was divided into two sub-groups, one for on-site and other for out-site respondents。The result shown that, on-site sample has higher WTP than out-site one. In further discussing, the sutdy assess the impact of users' familiarity with the valued resources using "visit times" (VIST) variable and found that users have good knowledge of valuation goods will make WTP estimates more hight and accurate.It should be noted that nowadays the CVM has become a very important of environment assessment project. However, because of its simulated characteristic, this validity and reliability would affect by different kind of bias. So it is strongly recommends that all the CVM studies should be done with scrutiny design and carefully conducted...