Valuation of forest land uses in the coastal region of Spain and Portugal.

Along the Atlantic coastline of the Iberian Peninsula more and more plantations of Eukalyptus globulus and Pinus radiata have been established with the main purpose to produce short rotation wood for the Pulp and panel industry, whereas forest ecosystem services, such as recreation or conservation, have been neglected. The paper reports the results of a valuation of different forest management alternatives in the study region. The target population was the Galician general public and responses were collected by personal interviews of randomly selected respondents. In a choice experiment they were asked to choose between different management alternatives, described in terms of different attributes and particular levels of these attributes ((i) percentage of area used for recreation and conservation purposes, (ii) occurrence of forest plantations, Atlantic broadleaved stands or areas without tree cover and (iii) a payment vehicle). The study shows that focussing on Financial goals while neglecting the impact on the landscape level might conflict with the preferences of the population and have negative results on tourism. The willingness to pay for a 10% increase of forest area for conservation and recreation purposes is 478 Euro per household. For changing land use from forest plantations to more than 50% Atlantic broadleaved stands we determined a willingness to pay of 400 Euro, whereas for reforestation of current non-productive land a value of 184 Euro per household has been estimated.