Measuring passive use value - Pledges, donations and CV responses in connection with an important natural resource

This paper examines monetary valuations of lost passive-use benefits associ ated with damage to a unique environmental resource - a national park, elic ited through contingent valuation, and compares them with actual donations to the same end, where the latter are interpreted as a quasi-market express ion of willingness to pay for non-market resource services. The relationshi ps between the two valuation approaches were investigated in the specific c ontext of an environmental episode which damaged a unique natural endowment , Israel's Carmel National Park. The empirical analysis is based on data fr om two sample surveys; one sample was drawn from the population of people w ho either pledged or pledged and donated during a fund-raising campaign fol lowing the episode, with the proceeds dedicated to rehabilitation or preven tion of future episodes; the second sample was drawn from the general popul ation of the country. The results cannot be interpreted as providing unqual ified support for the reliability of contingent valuation as a means for ob taining passive use values.