Public preferences and nonmarket values for the management of forest ecosystem services

This research uses a variety of techniques to investigate public preferences for and attitudes towards the management of forest ecosystem services among Michigan residents in order to provide information useful to natural resource managers and policy makers. The study focuses on a forested area in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to analyze public preferences for forest management in this region. The study forest is a timber dependent region with a history of intense timber harvesting. This area is also characterized by high winter deer densities that are potentially affecting tree regeneration and by the existence of important habitat for migratory forest songbirds. The interactions between deer populations and timber harvesting activities have adversely affected habitat for these songbirds. The presence of many complex interactions between humans, forests and wildlife in this area makes it an ideal setting in which to examine public preferences for tradeoffs between various forest ecosystem services.; The research is divided into four essays. Essay 1 is based on the results of focus groups that were conducted as part of the qualitative research design of the survey instrument. Analyses in essays 2, 3 and 4 are based on data collected from a mail survey of 2,000 Michigan residents, which collected data on forest management and environmental attitudes, demographic characteristics and stated preference contingent valuation data.; The first essay uses qualitative research techniques to analyze the results of a series of focus group discussions held in and near the study forest. This research finds that residents of rural, timber-dependent communities do not hold purely anthropocentric forest management values and urban, non-timber dependent residents do not hold purely biocentric values.; The second essay uses factor analysis to identify an underlying structure to environmental and forest management attitude data and uses resulting factor scores in a regression analysis of factor scores on a set of demographic characteristics. This study concludes that environmental and forest management attitudes can be reduced into a set of 5 factors, which can, in turn, be interpreted according to an anthropocentric/biocentric value framework. Regression results show that area of residence, age, membership in an environmental organization and political views can explain factor scores that reflect particular value orientations.; The third and fourth essays utilize the attribute-based referenda (ABR) model, a variant of the contingent valuation method (CVM) to estimate nonmarket values for forest ecosystem attributes of the study area. An orthogonal main effects design was used to create choice sets presented to survey respondents. A dichotomous choice referendum question elicited stated preference data used to estimate a series of random effects probit models used to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for a possible forest easement program. Essay 3 estimates the marginal effects and marginal dollar values of forest easement program attributes as well as the effects of a set of demographic characteristics on WTP. Essay 4 estimates the effects of distance, environmental attitudes and recreational use on WTP.