Assessing rainforest conservation demands

Choice Modelling is a non-market valuation technique that can be used to assess peoples' preferences for environmental protection where such information is not readily available from markets. The technique has a number of modelling and analytical strengths, and provides researchers with insights into how conservation values may be structured within society. The series of Choice Modelling applications reported in this paper explored the values that a sample of Brisbane residents held for protecting rainforests in Queensland and New South Wales, as well as in a variety of overseas locations. The results indicate that environmental, social and recreational values are important in determining potential support between different forest protection proposals. The modelling of decision pathways (through the application of nested logit models) indicates that the Brisbane residents surveyed were parochial in apportioning their support for rainforest protection. There is evidence that rainforests in Queensland are viewed as the most important to support, followed by those in other Australian states, and then those in overseas locations.