MEASURING ADDITIONAL ACCSESS FEES BASED ON ENVIRONMENRAL DEGRATIONS: A CASE OF WETLANDS IN HOKKAIDO, JAPAN

Abstract

 Since environmental valuation studies focus on a value of an environmental improvement, then, it is rare to show the value of an environmental degradation. Thus, many tourists to the environment don't willing to pay a fee, which is used for conservations of the environment, because they don't understand the degree of the degradation. Purposes of this study are to estimate the welfare losses of environmental degradations, and to calculate access fees based on the welfare losses. The trip data to 12 wetland areas of Hokkaido were used for estimation. In the case of 76% of environmental degradations were assumed, the fees range from 0.15% to 23.80% of the individuals' travel costs. In the case of 100%, the fees range from 0.46% to 143.41%, respectively.