Pricing ecological services: Willingness to pay for draught mitigation from watershed protection in eastern Indonesia

In this study we estimate local economic values of ecological services provided by protected forest watersheds in Ruteng Park in eastern Indonesia. Our use of contingent valuation (CV) methodology for pricing drought mitigation benefits to local farmers extends previous work by deriving measures of willingness to pay in terms of incremental agricultural profits. On the basis of the theoretical and content validity of estimated models we find that CV can be used to value complex ecological services in a rural developing country setting. The estimated parameters provide policy and management information regarding the economic magnitude and spatial distribution of the value of drought mitigation.