A social choice approach to sustainable forest management: an analysis of multiple forest values in Northwestern Ontario

The existing market-oriented valuation techniques for forest states (values), having public good features, are subject to some conceptual limitations. Multiple forest values are closer to the concept of ‘social states’ than market price or monetary value, and the decisions related to SFM are decisions of ‘social choice’ and not decisions to be guided by conventional benefit–cost analysis, based on monetization of all costs and benefits. Authors have proposed a non-market oriented stated preference technique to identify all possible forest values, and elicit peopleʹs preferences for different forest values. Using this technique, peoples’ preferences for forest values were collected from the members of four forest stakeholder groups in North-western Ontario. Intra-group preference aggregations were completed for the four groups, and inter-group preferences were compared using non-parametric statistical tools. A need for developing context-specific social welfare maximizing inter-group preferences aggregation rules is highlighted.