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Public preferences for forest ecosystem management in Japan with emphasis on species diversity

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Abstract

We carried out online choice experiments (CE) to investigate what value Japanese individuals assign to rare versus familiar species in forest ecosystem, and to determine how preference heterogeneity arises. CE attributes comprised a forestry charge as the price attribute and rare versus familiar species of animals or plants as the good to be valued. Species numbers in a 5 km-mesh forest area were evaluated without the use of species names to focus purely on responses to numerical changes. Positional effects were also tested to validate results regarding alternatives and attributes other than the price attribute. A random parameter logit model was adopted to capture preferences for species diversity. After confirming that no positional effects existed, we found that (1) rare animals were valued more highly than rare plants, (2) familiar plants were assigned a positive value, but familiar animals were not assigned significant value at the mean parameter estimate, and (3) preference heterogeneities existed for all species. The sources of preference heterogeneity were analyzed with a latent class model having principal components of environmental attitudes. The influence of such attitudes was shown to be significant and suggested that attention should be paid to belief systems rather than solely demographics.

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Notes

  1. http://www.biodic.go.jp/english/J-IBIS.html.

  2. Ojea et al. (2010) also reviewed the economic valuation studies on biodiversity in forests, including the other methodologies, such as a contingent valuation method or a travel cost method.

  3. Although Kunimitsu (2005) focused on rural parks, their results can be used for our purpose, as forest ecosystem in Japan is mainly dispersed in rural areas. They conclude that a radius of 2.1–2.9 km is a credible estimate of the attraction range of rural parks (Kunimitsu 2005: P. 271).

  4. In the first place, we aimed to link social welfare with GIS such as in the Japan Integrated Biodiversity Information System. Thus, we tried to develop the estimation procedure for evaluating the species diversity in some geographic mesh. However, our design may have some limitation in the context of estimation of welfare measures. Thus, we set this issue of linkage as the topic of future research.

  5. Thus, there may be some limitation in our estimates below in the context of unbiased welfare measures.

  6. Kjær et al. (2006) demonstrated that CE respondents became more price sensitive when they placed the price attribute at the bottom of the choice set, which resulted in lower willingness to pay.

  7. To conduct PCA with varimax rotation, we modified the R program “princomp2” in Shigenobu Aoki Web site (retrieved on 4 October 2011): http://aoki2.si.gunma-u.ac.jp/R/princomp2.html (in Japanese only).

  8. For example, Nunes et al. (2009) employed varimax rotation in conducting factor analysis to interpret factors easily. In addition, we appreciate the anonymous reviewers’ recommendation that we should conduct PCA with some rotation procedure to obtain more rigorous results.

  9. We treated the attitudinal response “Strongly Disagree” as 1, and “Strongly Agree” as 5 in each question.

  10. We tried to estimate LCM with various numbers of classes, which ranges from two to five. Though we obtained estimated results on 4-class and 5-class model, both the covariates, even of some constant terms in the membership function could not be significantly estimated. Thus, we interpreted that 4 and 5 classes were redundant.

  11. We employed demographics in Table 2 as covariates. However, no coefficients of demographics were significantly estimated.

  12. http://jgss.daishodai.ac.jp/english/index.html.

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Acknowledgments

This article represents a part of the research project entitled “Developing Integrated Evaluation of Forest Ecosystem Services Contributing to a Sustainable Rural Society in Harmony with Nature” granted by the Global Environment Research Fund. This article was also supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), KAKENHI: 23310031. Helpful comments and advice were provided by: Dr. Kenji Takeuchi, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University; participants in the Rokko Forum at Kobe University on 12 November 2009; Dr. Takahiro Tsuge, Faculty of Economics, Konan University; Dr. Yohei Mitani, Colorado University, who was the discussant at the Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies on 27 September 2009, including participants; Dr. Toru Murayama, Toyonaka Institute for Urban Management; two anonymous referees and an editor of Environmental Economics and Policy Studies. We greatly appreciate all of their comments and advice, the cooperation of FFPRI and their colleagues, Macromill, Inc., and many correspondents.

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Author notes

  1. Taro Ohdoko

    Present address: , Okamoto 1-14-9-301, Higashinada, Kobe, Hyogo, 658-0072, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University, Rokkodai-cho 2-1, Nada, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Taro Ohdoko

  2. Toyonaka Institute for Urban Management, 3-1-28, Kita-Sakurazuka, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-0022, Japan

    Taro Ohdoko

  3. Faculty of Environmental Studies, Nagasaki University, Bunkyo-machi 1-14, Nagasaki, Nagasaki, 852-8521, Japan

    Kentaro Yoshida

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  1. Taro Ohdoko
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Correspondence to Taro Ohdoko.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Description of status quo in Japanese forest in questionnaire

The area covered by the Japanese forest is around two-thirds (around 0.25 million km2) of the nation.

There are around 150 species of mammals living in Japanese forests excluding invasive ones, which include endangered species. The number of endangered species is larger than one-fourth (42 species) of the total species in Japan.

There are around 200 species of birds in Japanese forests, which include endangered birds. The number of endangered birds is larger than one-fourth (53 species) of the total in Japan.

There are around 1,000 species of timber in Japanese forests except invasive species. In addition, there are around 7,000 species of vascular plants, which include timber, grasses, flowers, etc.

The number of endangered species of vascular plant is less than one-fourth (1,690 species) of the total in Japan.

In recent years, the number of endangered species has been increasing on earth, which relates to the loss of rich forests. Because the current scheme of forest management is imperfect, we should improve that (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

The number of endangered animals and plants in the world (vertical axis: the number of species, lateral axis: the year registered in the Red Data Book). Source: Created by authors from data in the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (http://www.iucnredlist.org/)

Full size image

Appendix 2: CE scenario

Suppose that there is some forest management scheme targeting on species and landscape in Japanese forests. This scheme is conducted at the national level. Then, please answer the questions below with the forest image of your own.

This scheme is conducted in a certain unit. Suppose the width of a unit is 25 km2 (~radius of less than 3 km), and suppose the unit is as wide as the area of your daily life.

However, the scheme costs a lot. Thus, suppose that a certain forest fund has been organized to create some framework which enables preserving Japanese forests in the long term, and that a one-time forest charge is collected from each Japanese household in this year to manage the fund.

Please note that your disposable money decreases if you donate to the fund. Then, please choose what you think is the most preferable from the schemes provided below.

Questions will proceed 14 times. Please choose a scheme, question by question, carefully. Then, we provide the details of the scheme below.

Details of the scheme

Contents

Descriptions of contents

Preserving familiar animals

Management of the species of mammals and birds which we usually observe. The increase in the number denotes that more animal species can live in the forest

Preserving rare animals

Management of the endangered species of mammals and birds which are registered in the Red Data Book. The increase in the number denotes that we can more frequently observe those registered

Preserving familiar plants

Management of the species of timber which we usually observe. The increase in the number denotes that forests become richer so that more animal and plant species can live there

Preserving rare plants

Management of the endangered species of plants which are registered in the Red Data Book. The increase in the number denotes that we can more frequently observe those registered

  1. The scheme is conducted in your neighborhood
  2. Please consider these contents along with forestry charges

Choice set example (if you prefer Scheme 1 to Scheme 2)

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Ohdoko, T., Yoshida, K. Public preferences for forest ecosystem management in Japan with emphasis on species diversity. Environ Econ Policy Stud 14, 147–169 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-011-0026-y

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