Public Preferences for Forest Ecosystem Management in Japan with Emphasis on Species Diversity

We carried out online choice experiments (CE) to investigate what value Japanese individuals assign to rare vs. familiar species in forest ecosystems, and to determine how preference heterogeneity arises. CE attributes comprised a forestry charge as the price attribute and rare vs. familiar species of animals or plants as the good to be valued. Species numbers in a 5 km mesh forest area were evaluated without the use of species names so as to focus purely on responses to numerical changes. In addition, attribute positional effects were tested to validate results regarding attributes other than the price attribute along with alternative positional influences. A random parameter logit model was adopted to capture preferences for species diversity. We show that positional effects did not affect attributes other than the price attribute, and did not influence alternatives. We find that 1) rare animals are valued more highly than rare plants; 2) familiar plants are assigned a positive value, but familiar animals are not assigned significant value at the mean parameter estimate and 3) preference heterogeneities exist for all species. The sources of preference heterogeneity were analyzed with a latent class model having principal components of attitudes toward the environment. The influence of such attitudes is shown to be significant, and suggests that attention should be paid to belief systems rather than solely demographics.