Despite the potential benefits accruing from use of the rural landscape access to farmland is a contentious issue with many landowners restricting public access. Within this context, this paper first explores general public preferences and willingness to pay for farmland walking trails in the...

Public access to the Irish countryside for walking and recreation generally is a contentious issue. Increased affluence, mobility and changing values have brought about increased demands with respect to recreation in the countryside. There is also a greater emphasis on consumption demands for...

This paper explores the attitudes of landowners across Ireland to the wider provision of public access for recreational walking using a multinomial logit model. The study investigates the level of compensation required to improve the supply of this public good. Results indicate that 51% of...

In the last decade the demand for rural recreation has increased in Ireland as the population has become increasingly urbanised. Increased affluence, mobility and changing values have also brought new demands with respect to landscape, conservation, heritage and recreation, with a greater...

Contingent valuation has been used extensively in estimating the value of environmental goods. One criticism of this approach, however, is that respondents in referendum-style contingent valuation surveys may express citizen assessments that take into account benefits to others rather than...

In this paper we outline the use of a farm level spatial microsimulation model that is used to produce small area farm population microdata estimates of the probability of participation by Irish farmers in the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) for the year 2005. Previous studies that...

The rural landscape can be thought of as a non-market commodity associated with the multifunctional aspect of agriculture and the need for its conservation is gaining more prominence in EU policy. This paper explored the Irish general public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for agricultural...

Currently rates of planting lag far behind levels that would be expected from a comparison of the returns from farm forestry with competing agricultural alternatives. Previous research has focused on the role of economic factors such as government subsidies, returns from competing agricultural...