Total economic value of forest ecosystem services in Endau Rompin National Park, Johor, Malaysia

The Endau Rompin National Park is the second gazetted national park in Malaysia. The mixed type of dipterocarp forest in the national park is rich with natural resources. The national park supplies various ecosystem services such as provisioning, regulating, habitat or supporting services and cultural and amenity services that benefit the community as a whole. Nonetheless, while existing for 24 years as a national park, it has not been without threats and management barriers. Among the examples for such barriers are illegal activities, loss of keystone species, forest degradation, forest loss, insufficient staff, low levels of finance, etc. Apart from the impacts experienced from these barriers, the lack of information pertinent to the value of the ecosystem services in the park has brought about the need to estimate the total economic value of the national park. Such information will be useful to justify the need for the conservation efforts and improve the management of the natural resources in the national park, particularly to the public, policy makers, and politicians, respectively. The aim of the study is to determine the total economic value of the forest ecosystem services in the Endau Rompin National Park, Johor. Hence, the research has a fourfold specific objective. First, it attempts to identify the profile of the visitors as well their satisfaction with the facilities and recreational activities provided by the recreational sites in the Endau Rompin National Park. The second objective is to identify the forest ecosystem services in the Endau Rompin National Park. The third and fourth objectives are to determine the market and non-market values of the forest ecosystem services in the Endau Rompin National Park. In addition, the study has identified the specific barometers that suit the total economic value of a mixed dipterocarp type of forest present in the Endau Rompin National Park through a thorough review of past studies. This has resulted in a total of 12 indicators that are comprised of timber, non-timber, handicrafts, education and research recreation, tropical ethnobotany, indigeneous cultural commoditisation, carbon sequestration, watershed services, genetic diversity and nursery services, conservation value of tourism, and biodiversity. Next, in terms of the research methodology, methods like market price, damage cost avoided, benefit transfer, and choice modelling have been utilised for the indicator measurement purposes. While, in terms of data collection, both the primary and secondary data have been obtained to estimate the total economic value of the national park. The primary data collection has involved the sampling of visitors and resources. For the earlier one,a total of 350 respondents have been selected based on the purposive sampling among the local visitors at the Endau Rompin National Park. For the latter one, a ground forest inventory, also using the purposive sampling technique, has been utilised to choose 6 plots in Peta. On the other hand, the secondary data has been obtained from sources like annual visitor arrival data, amount of local and international funds received, the global wood density database data, and the values retrieved from the benefit transfer method. Among the results found for the first objective, which involves the descriptive analysis, it includes that the majority of the ages of the visitors are less than or equal to 30 years old, education has been attained at a tertiary educational level, earnings are above RM5,000, they are single, come in groups, and are first time visitors. For the second objective, all of the forest ecosystem services that belong to the provisioning, regulating, habitat/supporting services, and cultural and amenity services in the ERNP have been identified. They are timber, non-timber forest products, handicrafts that belong to the provisioning services, followed by carbon stock and sequestration, and watershed services; while for habitat/supporting services, they are, namely, genetic diversity and nursery services, and lastly, under cultural and amenity services they are education and research, recreation, tropical ethnobotany and indigenous cultural commoditisation, and conservation value. For the third objective, in terms of the market value of the forest ecosystem services by the total economic value components, the largest amount has been denoted by the direct use value (consumptive) at RM12,695,251,650 or USD2,827,450,254; direct use value (non-consumptive) at RM2,906,698 or USD 647,372; and finally, the indirect use value at RM1,220,380,715 or USD 271,799,714.On the other hand, in terms of the specific total economic value indicators, it has been found that the largest amount of the total economic value measured based on the market values belongs to timber at RM12,572,252,875 or USD2,800,056,318 followed by carbon sequestration at RM1, 164,672,575 or USD259,392,556. For the fourth objective, in terms of the non-market value of the forest ecosystem services by the total economic value components, it is denoted by the non-use value amounting to RM198,024 or USD44,103. The consumer surplus for the conservation and management related attributes have been estimated to be approximately RM37 for each local visitor. The findings from this study will help the management of the park to understand the value of the natural resources in the national park, understand the preferences of local visitors on the preferable management and conservation related attribute options, as well the marketing efforts of the park for tourism purposes.

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