Economic valuation of protected areas and recreational sites in India: some review findings

The economic valuation studies based on protected areas (PAs) and recreational sites of India have been critically reviewed. In most of the studies, travel cost method (TCM) and contingent valuation method (CVM) have been used to measure the economic value of PAs. These methods are not sufficient to elicit total economic value (TEV) of different sites thus studies are incomplete. It is found that ignorance, illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and inappropriate institutions are the major hurdles in adopting the survey based methods, especially CVM. The review findings reveal that while measuring economic value of PAs, results of different studies adopting different techniques are not the same. In addition to that, it is found in the review that some scholars have estimated use value and some others non-use value. The findings of the review conclude that only one study has captured both use and non-use value of a national park.