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Links between Mountain Communities and Environmental Services in the Italian Alps
Author(s) -
Notaro Sandra,
Paletto Alessandro
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2011.00532.x
Subject(s) - valuation (finance) , social capital , geography , willingness to pay , affect (linguistics) , contingent valuation , ecosystem services , population , socioeconomics , business , environmental resource management , sociology , ecology , social science , demography , economics , ecosystem , communication , finance , biology , microeconomics
The aim of this study is to evaluate the importance of mountain communities in increasing the value of environmental services. The assumption of the research is that, for historical and cultural reasons there is a greater sense of local identity and social capital in alpine communities and thus greater attention to the environment. In these communities individuals with a higher level of social capital will have a greater tendency to play a tangible role in the preservation of the environment. The study concerns the municipality of Premana in the Italian Alps. We evaluated forest and alpine pasture environmental services using the contingent valuation (CV) method. We interviewed 319 randomly selected residents (14 per cent of the population), asking them about their willingness to pay or donate work hours. Their annual mean willingness to pay was €94 and €896 in working hours, respectively. The CV results, together with other data collected through the questionnaire, demonstrate that local traditions and social capital play a key role in the multifunctional management of forests and alpine pastures. We suggest that studies such as this one on the benefits evaluation of the environmental services of mountain resources might be used for the formation and implementation of better informed policies that will affect the future of mountain communities.