The Comparison Between Public Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Recreation for Sorkhe Hesar and Other Forest Parks in Iran

The economic evaluation has a important effect on the optimization of the environmental policies. These systems provide necessary mechanism to increase welfare. So, to make these sources quantitive and recognizable is of high importance. This study tries to evaluate and estimate recreational value of Sorkhe Hesar forest park in Tehran province with completed 230 questionnaires dichotomous choice and analyzes parameters affecting individual public preferences in 2013. Willingness to pay (WTP) of individuals was specified, using contingent valuation method (CVM) and Logit regression model. Also effective factors on WTP, were studied based on the maximum likelihood parameters coefficients of the model. The variables of suggested fee, family monthly revenue, the educational level, satisfaction rate, age, the inclination to revisit, and spring and summer has a meaningful effect on people 's inclination to pay for taking advantage of recreational use of this park. the meaningfulness of three variables the suggested fee, family monthly revenue and the educational level is similar to research findings in another forestall parks. The willingness to pay for recreation of the forestall park Sorkhe Hesar was measured $1 per person per visit. In comparison with control group, this is considerably lower. The differences of the rate of attractiveness of these parks has caused a considerable difference in the inclination to pay for recreation. Age was a significant variable in this study in contrast to the results of the other park, Older people due to high attraction of forest, are willing to pay.