Estimation of non-market value of Qeshm Hara forest using the approach Selection modeling

The Hara forest, also known as the mangrove protected area, with an area of 200 square kilometers, is located in the Khoran Strait, between Qeshm Island and Khamir Port in Hormozgan Province. These forests provide countless services to the community in terms of ecology, economy and tourism, and are very important from this perspective. The purpose of this article is to help policy makers and planners to manage the forest efficiently and sustainably. For this purpose, using selection modeling analysis, the value of qualitative benefits provided by this forest to the community was estimated. For this purpose, the logit model with simple random parameters and then the logit model with combined random parameters (with action sentences) were used to estimate the heterogeneity in community preferences for different forest characteristics. The results of this study show that people's preferences are significantly heterogeneous. Also, in this study, the tendency of final payment for non-market characteristics of mangrove forest including natural landscape, ecological yield and biodiversity was estimated. Finally, the numbers obtained for the willingness to make the final payment were generalized to the whole community, resulting in the annual value of the qualitative benefits along with their total value. These numbers for the annual and total value (capital) are equal to 321109 and 1.536.084 billion rials, respectively. The calculated existential value shows that the community is willing to pay to protect this forest and there is a potential to use the results of the present study as a baseline study to improve the level of public awareness and witness a very high level of public participation in conservation projects. It was from this forest. The obtained numbers can also be used for economic-environmental evaluation of projects in and around this forest