Recreation Value of Hara Biosphere Reserve Using Willingness-to-Pay Method

Hara Biosphere Reserve in southern Hormozgan province with 85686 hectares areas is located between Bandar Khamir and Queshm Island. This area can be considered as the most spectacular regions of Iran for a unique coastal Seascape. Mangrove forests and amazing biodiversity make this region as the most significant ecotourism areas throughout the country. This research attempts to determine recreation value of Mangrove forests and willingness of the tourists to pay for ecotourism areas using Contingent Valuation Method and dichotomous choice questionnaire. Socio-economic assessment of the study area was carried out through the analysis of the touristfilled questionnaires in 2006 based on proper and logical time and place distribution. Logit model was used to determine the willingness of individuals, because the model’s parameters are based on methods of Maximum likelihood. Results show that 81.2 % of the individuals are willing to pay for recreation value forms of Mangrove forests. The annual average Willingness-to-Pay for this region is US 5 per visit. Moreover, the annual economic value of Mangrove forests was estimated us 97.5/ acre which shows Existence values of these kinds of forests and also the necessity for planning to employ the recreation capabilities in the study area.

Keywords
Economic valuation, Recreation value, Willingness to Pay (WTP), Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), Hara Biosphere Reserve