How Valuable are National Parks? Evidence from a Proposed National Park Expansion in Alaska.

ABSTRACT: When balancing environmental preservation and economic development, it is critical to evaluate how taxpayers value national park land and for what they are valuing it. One key component of this evaluation is to calculate a "passive use value," or the willingness to pay (WTP), for protection of land that may never directly be used, and to determine what benefits of land protection motivate this passive use value. We estimated the WTP for a 5% expansion of Denali National Park in Alaska (an expansion of 325,340 acres) using a questionnaire and the contingent valuation method. The survey first educated respondents on Alaskan geography, the current status of protected land and wildlife in Alaska, and common arguments for and against National Park expansion. The survey then described a proposal

SUBMITTER: Johnson L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6613930 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature