Public preferences and willingness-to-pay for nature conservation in the North York Moors National Park, UK

In the light of decreased Central Government funding, National Parks and protected areas throughout the world will have to increasingly «pay for themselves», depending to a greater extent on revenue from tourism, the sale of proceeds and/or external grants. Public preferences and broader economic values are therefore likely to play an increasingly important role in the management of such environmental resources. The purpose of this work was to use an environmental economics framework to estimate public preferences for different habitats within the North York Moors National Park, UK, and the economic value associated with National Parks in the UK. Both heather moorland and semi-natural broadleaved woodland were highly valued by visitors to the Park, moorland primarily for recreation and woodland primarily for nature conservation. Contingent valuation revealed that whilst some people thought that increased revenue for the National Park should be raised by the Park itself by making more productive use of the land, a significant majority of visitors said they would be prepared to contribute additional revenue towards nature conservation in the National Park. A postal questionnaire revealed that this amounted to a mean value of 3·10 per individual per year. This compared with 119 per individual per year for all 11 National Parks obtained from an interview questionnaire. The results indicate that most visitors to the Park would be willing to provide additional revenue towards nature conservation, and that recreation in the Park could therefore be used in a beneficial way to maintain and enhance the Parkʹs nature conservation value.