Southern Research Station

Title: The net economic value of wilderness

Author: Bowker, J. Michael; Harvard, J.E., III; Bergstrom, John C.; Cordell, H. Ken; English, Donald B.K.; Loomis, John B.

Date: 2005

Source: In: The Multiple Values of Wilderness: 161-181

Description: The purpose of this chapter is to inventory and assess what is currently known about the economic or "dollar" values accruing to Americans from the National Wilderness Preservation System. This chapter identifies the benefits of Wilderness and the economic value of these benefits through an extensive review of published conceptual and empirical literature. It uses the definition of Wilderness provided by the Wilderness Act of 1964, which encompasses both the objective and subjective aspects of Wilderness (see Chapters 3 and 4). When this chapter refers to "Wilderness," the authors mean statutory or official Wilderness as defined by the Wilderness Act of 1964. The question that this chapter addresses is: "How much are the on-site recreation and passive use benefits of Wilderness worth to Americans?"

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Citation

Bowker, J. Michael; Harvard, J.E., III; Bergstrom, John C.; Cordell, H. Ken; English, Donald B.K.; Loomis, John B.  2005.  The net economic value of wilderness.   In: The Multiple Values of Wilderness: 161-181