Publication

A comparison of stakeholder preferences for market and nonmarket goods and services from two forests in Western North Carolina

Schaberg, R. H., T. P. Holmes, and R. C. Abt

Public values play an important role in National Forest planning. Citizens demonstrate a broad range of preferences for enviornmental goods and services, and expectations for resource allocations among incompatible uses can lead to significant conflicts or litigation. Understanding the mix of public preferences for forest goods and services, and understanding which benefits are considered to be of critical importance by subsets of the public (stakeholder groups), is a significant step in a viable resource allocation process. This paper presents a mail survey conducted to determine the preferences of North Carolina citizens for an array of market and nonmarket benefits available from the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests in western North Carolina. The survey methodology is presented and preliminary descriptive statistics are reported for a subset of the data. Preference data for three stakeholder segments (timber, hunting and fishing, and environmental advocates) and a random control are compared and contrasted.