about the uses of the wood has appeared until now; the different uses as wood cutting, walking,
hunting, daffodils gathering, and so on, coexist seasonally or all year long without a major prob-
lem. On the face of it, there is not a problem of defending an environmental value under immedi-
ate threat. So, the valuation question is a straight- forward one of understanding what sorts of
significance are attached to the forest by the local communities, whether or not this is sufficient to
ensure that it will sustained and, if so, in what form?
3. Investigating the relationship between community viability and forest value
3
.
1
. The woodland as a socio-ecological-economic unity
In early phases of the VALSE project Bois de Bouchereau study, analyses were conducted that
brought out the qualities of the forest socio-eco- system as an indivisible unit. Based on both insti-
tutional and ecosystems analysis, a dynamic simulation model was developed that represented
the evolving forest system through the interaction of human and ecological forces Heron, 1997;
Heron and O’Connor, 1999. The model ex- pressed, as a sort of metaphor, the way that the
forest is a component of a veritable ‘social in- frastructure’. A complex tissue of social meanings
and economic exploitations is invested in the liv- ing whole, and the ‘value’ of the forest is insepara-
ble from this collective shared, communal investment.
The description of the forest was thus devel- oped along two axes: the variety of actors stake-
holders who contribute, and the variety of values attributed by these actors to the forest system. In
this way a preliminary picture of the relationship between community viability and forest value is
obtained see Heron, 1997; Noe¨l and Tsang King Sang, 1997:
1. The owners. The woodland is fragmented into nearly 300 lots, distributed across about 155
separate owners, most of whom live in the nearby farming communities. Ownership is
transmitted mostly though hereditary trans- mission, which means a growing proportion of
distant owners. This is private property both legally and really to some extent. The wood is
exploited by owners, primarily as a source of fuel, with a smaller amount harvested for tim-
ber. In terms of harvesting practices there are three classes of proprietor: type 1 does not
carry out any maintenance of their woodland lots; type 2 carries out periodic clear-felling
rotation period of around 30 – 45 years; type 3 undertakes continual maintenance and selec-
tive harvesting.
2. The farmers whose lands adjoin the forest. There are about 20 such farmers, the majority
being around 60 years old. There are pressures on these farmers to leave some lands fallow
e.g. European agricultural policy directives, and at present the tendency is to let areas
adjacent to the forest lie unproductive so that they become a sort of scrubland which is a
good habitat for some forms of wildlife.
3. The hunters. Hunting is a traditional pastime and the woodlands are privileged domains for
this activity. In the district of the Bouchereau Woods there is a hunting club with nearly 100
members, made up of woodlot owners, farm- ers and a few outsiders. Since the 1970s, the
game populations have diminished markedly, due in part to isolation of the woodland and in
part to illicit hunting by outsiders. Various measures are being pursued by the also dimin-
ishing hunting community to enhance the wildlife populations while still preserving the
spontaneity of the hunt.
4. Visitors on foot. The forest is greatly valued in the springtime for daffodils including hordes
who come to pick the flowers from Paris. In the past it had importance also for its contri-
butions to the local cuisine: berries; mush- rooms; snails and other items in their seasons.
There are many local recreational users, but there are some outsiders.
5. Those acting for the community. There are numerous groups and authorities who repre-
sent in differing ways a ‘common interest’ for the district. These include the local commune
which undertakes maintenance of the adjacent
roads, and co-ordinates some replanting in consultation with the hunting club and an
environmental organisation, Les Mains Vertes du Gaˆtinais, whose preoccupation is preserva-
tion of the patrimoine naturel. The national hunting authority and the regional council
both also play important roles in defining con- servation perspectives, priorities and measures
for implementation.
The various categories of human actors can be understood as agents of ecosystem stability and of
change. Their significance cannot be defined in- trinsically, but rather will depend on the overall
state of balance — or imbalance — in the wood- land system dynamics. The variety of users and
uses points to a high local significance of the woodland, associated mostly with the rural vil-
lage and agricultural community life in the re- gion. However, this high valuation is now ‘at risk’
due to demographic and lifestyle change tenden- cies. Less and less people take an active interest in
the forest. This not only suggests a ‘reduced de- mand’ for the forest values, it also means that the
forest will objectively change. It is probable that the existing biological diversity including flower-
ing species, mushrooms, butterflies, birds, game animals and various species of trees will diminish
if the woodland were to be generally neglected over a long period of time. This is a reminder that
the ‘values’ of this woodland are inseparable from the customary ways of life of the people involved.
We are not dealing with an ‘intrinsic value’ as if it were independent of human perception; rather we
are documenting the human appreciation of the richness of the forest life forms.
3
.
2
. The sociological dimensions of enquiry into 6
alue The demographic data obtained for wood-lot
owners showed that, although ownership may be transmitted mostly though hereditary transmis-
sion, a process of rural depopulation is resulting in a growing proportion of distant owners. The
locally resident population is growing older for example, the majority of the 20-odd farmers
whose lands adjoin the forest are around 60 years old. The preliminary diagnostic phase of mod-
elling and the demographic data thus suggested two questions for orienting further enquiry.
First there was the methodological question of how and in what terms to assess the value of
the woodland as an actual part of the local communities’ way of life.
Second, there was the forward-looking ques- tion of the implications for the woodland’s
management of the observable demographic and lifestyle changes, especially if these latter
imply
a diminution
of the
woodland’s significance.
The subsequent phase of the enquiry into value was carried out through a survey process that
combined a data questionnaire with in-depth in- terview procedures. This followed design notions
of a number of earlier valuation studies see Vad- njal and O’Connor, 1994; Spash, 1997, 2000 and
in this volume showing how it is possible to conduct a structured WTP or WTA questionnaire
enquiry which, simultaneously, functions as an entre´e or framing device for an open-ended inter-
view. The advantage of this approach is that it permits the queries, opinions, reactions, commen-
taries, objections of the questionnaire respondent to be documented e.g. recorded on pocket audio-
cassette, so allowing the researcher to learn — through listening and subsequent discourse analy-
sis — about the reasoning being applied by the respondent.
The guiding idea for our Bouchereau woodland research design was that an enquiry into the
woodland value should seek not just to learn how much in money terms people might be willing to
pay WTP or to receive WTA in relation to access or ownership, but also to learn about the
reasons for the figures given. A research proce- dure was required that would produce knowledge
of relevant individual attitudes, social norms, cus- toms, political or ethical convictions. Why and in
what terms do people invest time, effort and meaning in the woodland? What is the importance
attached to the woodland? Answers to such ques- tions, qualitative as much as quantitative, help us
to understand the ‘supply of’ and the ‘demand for’ woodland maintenance and, looking to the
future, provide insights into the factors — social, economic and other — that will determine
whether or not the value attached to the wood- land will be sustained into the future.
With these design notions in mind, some initial consideration was given to the possibility of con-
ducting a survey enquiry into the monetary value of the woodland through posing willingness-to-
pay WTP and willingness-to-accept WTA questions to members of the local communities.
Conducting such a survey requires proposing hy- pothetically a plausible situation for the hypo-
thetical bids. One option would have been to pose WTPWTA questions concerning availability of
the woodland as a whole. But, since the local people already have everyday use access and there
is no immediate threat of destruction such as a commercial zone or a motorway or TGV train
route, this option would have been alarmist and or implausible.
A less disruptive line of approach was to en- quire into the conditions surrounding the trans-
mission of individual wood-lots from one owner to another. Initial investigations revealed that the
wood-lots are transacted individually — mostly in the context of a hereditary transmission, some-
times as a local rearrangement e.g. a neighbour seeks an adjacent plot, or a local person seeks a
hunting terrain. These changes of ownership in- volve
monetary transactions,
administered through notary offices in the district. So there is a
price for a wood-lot when it changes hands. But this does not necessarily mean that there is a
‘market for wood-lots’. We have to look into the social circumstances of the transaction.
The decision was finally made to undertake a survey on the price at which and, more particu-
larly, the conditions under which, existing propri- etors might be willing-to-accept sale of their
plots. A survey format was developed that com- bined a search for some specific data and quanti-
tative information together with open-ended questions that would permit an ‘in-depth inter-
view’ to be developed. After an exhaustive process of enquiry detailed in Boisvert et al. 1998, a
sample of 55 owners of wood-lots parcels in the little forest were contacted and subsequently inter-
viewed. Excluded from the enquiry, for logistic reasons, were those owners residing far away from
the wood. So the enquiry sample concerned own- ers who live in the immediate region. This is a
‘biais’, but it is not critical in relation to the primarily interpretative rather than statistical pur-
poses of the study. The questionnaire was deliber- ately kept very simple, and focussed on the
perception the owners have concerning the price of their own and other woodlots see Table 1 and
the Appendix A.
3
.
3
. Profile of the sur6ey sample of Bois de Bouchereau wood-lot owners
The principal characteristics of the owner sam- ple of 55 people who replied to the questionnaire
are as described below. The majority of the group was male 64. The
women often declared themselves as incompetent where wood is concerned, even when the plots
belonged to them either through an inheritance from their parents or the sharing of goods follow-
ing a marriage. However, during the interviews, female partners were present, and although they
often remained quiet at the outset, they partici- pated more, and at times vocally, as the interview
developed. The average age of the group is fairly high above 66 years, the youngest being 30 and
the oldest 93. Age distribution is as shown in Fig. 1.
The owners of a small number of small plots also dominate distribution of the property. In
fact, 24 of the owners questioned 44 possess only one plot; ten possess two 18; seven pos-
sess three 13; seven possess four 13; three possess five 5; only one possesses six 1; and
three do not know how many they possess 5. In terms of the size of the plots see Fig. 2, and
according to their statements, out of the 55 who responded to the questionnaire, eight 15 pos-
sess more than one hectare, twelve 22 possess between 50 ares and one hectare, twelve 22
possess between 20 and 50 ares, six 11 between 10 and 20 ares, nine 16 less than 10 ares and
eight 15 do not know the size of their plots.
Considered in socio-economic terms, 60 of the sample comprised people retired from agricul-
ture, the other professions being: farmers 16; other retired people 14; housewives 7; and
diverse activities 2. In some cases, the husband
is retired while his younger wife manages the operation of the farm. It is mostly farmers or
ex-farmers who hold the wooded plots of land rather
than rural
notables: the
Bois de
Bouchereau appears thus as an extension of agri- cultural activity.
4. The valuation enquiry findings
