Assessing the non-commercial values of environmental resources by using CVM; Case study: Siberian Crane, Fereydounkenar international wetland of Iran

Natural recourses play a significant role in human's well being but economists' attention is mostly taken only on the marketable value but nowadays the tends, is changing as economic Valuation intends to create outstanding changes in public awareness by the valuation of biological resources like aquatic and land habitats of plant and animal and also to create a stronger motive for protection because as everybody knows free goods do not worth so different methods have been innovated and researchers have been studied in this way. These researches had made considerable progress in the valuation of environmental and ecological services, which was afforded by ecosystems. Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is one of economic valuation tools, is based on public viewpoints, measures of individual’s willingness to pay (WTP)2 and individual’s willingness to accept (WTA)3 and maximum likelihood (ML)4 application. The result of a study on a measure of WTP shows that about 93% of the people are ready to pay monthly for protection and survival of Siberian Crane and only 7 % of them were not ready to pay only because of their low financial level. Results on the measure of WTA indicate that all 100% of people were not ready to accept money instead of annihilation of the Crane. The average willingness to pay for Siberian Crane protection is accounted 231723$ at the national zone and 57914270$ at the regional zone. Since the fisher test does not respond at the national zone and the difference was significant, extending the number of the samples to the national zone is impossible. It is merely possible to mention that about 1500 families in the country are ready to pay 40,000RLs monthly or 72,000,000 RLs annually only for the survival of Siberian Crain.