Demand for enhanced forest amenities in private lands: The case of the Ruka-Kuusamo tourism area, Finland

• Main Authors: Tyrväinen, Liisa, Mäntymaa, Erkki, Ovaskainen, Ville
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Kuusamo; Ruka; Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934113001172

Forestry as a large industry has significant impacts on the quality of forest landscapes in boreal forests. In Finland, the rapid growth of nature-based tourism has expanded tourism and outdoor recreation activities from protected areas into commercial forests, especially in northern Finland. This has created demands to modify current forest management regimes, in particular regeneration practices. As the landscape and recreational benefits of forests mainly represent direct and indirect use values, there may be a case for a direct contractual mechanism of payments between the users (e.g. tourism entrepreneurs) and providers (forest owners). Environmental benefits; Choice experiment method; Payments for ecosystem services; Market-based mechanisms; Nature-based tourism;