Browsing by Author "Tulla, Taneli"

The aim of this thesis was to study how different forest management regimes suits for forest recreation. The second aim was to study whether there is voluntary willingness to pay for forest structure transition from a even-aged structure to a uneven-aged structure in a municipality-owned forest. In addition, factors which affects the willingness-to-pay were under study. The preferred forest structure was examined by contingent valuation method. In the scenario of the survey, a case was presented where a mature forest stand could be transformed into a better suiting recreational environment. Different forest stands were illustrated by photographs and they were asked to be evaluated how they would suit for recreation. If the respondent preferred the uneven-aged structure over even-aged structure, then the willingness to pay for transformation from even-aged to uneven-aged forest structure was enquired. The survey was completed by 67 persons in Helsinki. Factors which affect the willingness-to-pay were studied with logistic regression models. In addition, a distribution of the willingness-to-pay among response alternatives was studied with the logistic regression models. The uneven-aged forest management was preferred as a recreational environment by 40 respondents. Results relating to recreational habits were in line with earlier studies. Earlier studies were compared to the findings in this study relating to landscape preferences and the obtained results matched well studies conducted before. The average willingness-to-pay, calculated from the data, was €19.75 and the median willingness-to-pay was €10. 40% of the respondents chose to answer zero for willingness-to-pay. Age and income were the only background variables which were significant at 10% significance level.