Willingness to pay for the conservation of Yew-trees in Vietnam

Abstract

Yew tree has not only value in use of wood products but also in existence of itself which provides valuable opportunities to other fields of research such as biology, chemistry, pharmacology. The number of Vietnamese yew trees, however, has reduced year after year and today there are only approximately 250 natural individuals locating in Daklak, Vietnam. According to the IUCN and Viet Nam Red Data Book, Vietnamese yew trees are critically endangered. The subject of this research is to measure the existence value of yew trees using contingent valuation method (CVM) with single-bound dichotomous choice (DC). The study finds out that the mean WTP for conservation of Yew in Vietnam is approximately VND 73,000 per household; and household heads with different socio-economic characteristics such as age, income, occupation, and education have significantly different levels of WTP.