Comparing the economic value of fire conditions and the effects of wildfire on hiking in New-Mexico recreation sites using contingent the valuation method and travel cost method.

Abstract: There are some criticizes on Contingent valuation method (CVM) and Travel cost method (TCM), therefore many researchers have combined multiple methods of non-market valuation or have tried to value the non-market goods or services by different methods and check for convergent validity of the methods. In this paper both CVM and TCM are used. The empirical part showed that willingness to pay is more for New-Mexico recreation sites based on a dichotomous choice sample obtained from the data set gathered by Hessaln et al. In addition, fire age is shown to have less impact on WTP of visiting the sites in contingent valuation method. This study showed the two estimates on willingness to pay calculated by TCM and CVM are not significantly different at the 5 % level. Key words:Environmental amenities Non-market valuation Travel Cost method Contingent valuation method Recreation INTRODUCTION process when determining fire management decisions, While fire plays an important role in most forest There are a number of studies that address social ecosystems in North America, the challenge of managing aspects of fire. Englin et al. [2] used travel cost method to fire in North America is to find ways to effectively balance assess value changes for canoeing in Manitoba, Canada. the positive ecological aspects of fire with the negative Hessaln et al. [1] have investigated the fire effects on