Estimation of Citizens’ Willingness to Pay for the Implementation of Payment for Local Forest Ecosystem Services: The Case of Taxes and Donations

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine a valid strategy for implementing payment for the local forest ecosystem services (local forest PES) by considering citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) and the resource types utilized (taxes and donations). A total of 1000 citizens responded to an online survey, which consisted of questions related to respondents’ socio-demographics, predicting factors (i.e., political orientation, personal tie to the region) of their willingness to pay (WTP), and their willingness to pay for a bundle of 10 different forest ecosystem services (ESs) in the region of the Yeoninsan provincial park in Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. The estimation of the respondents’ WTP for the promotion of the forest management activities, which enhances the ES bundle of the local forest, was 14,315–20,216 KRW (12.75–18.00 USD) per year in taxes and 12,258–26,518 KRW (10.92–23.61 USD) per year in donations. This study also revealed that the predicting factors influencing the respondents’ WTP for the promotion of the local forest ESs differed according to the financial resource type (taxes and donations). The results of this study are meaningful in that they can be used as empirical basic data in estimating payments and preparing measures to secure financial resources when designing payments for the ecosystem services for the local forest.