Valoração econômica do Parque das Mangabeiras, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil

Abstract

The economic value of an environmental resource is given by estimating its monetary value in relation to the other goods and services available in the economy. There are several methodologies to determine the economic value of an environmental good. For example, the contingent valuation method is one of the most used. This method seeks to estimate how much consumers would be willing to pay for a given environmental good. From that moment, it is verified if the population is inserted in the term green consumer. The objective of the study was to estimate the economic value (value of use and existence value) of the Mangabeiras Park/MG (PqM) (19º56'S and 43º53 'W), located in the southern area of the municipality of Belo Horizonte, State of Minas Gerais. The PqM has an area of 236 hectares, with altitudes varying from 300 to 1,000 m. It is situated in a transition zone between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biomes. A questionnaire was applied to the population of Belo Horizonte with questions about the socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals and their willingness to pay for the future tourist use of the park area or for the future mineral use of the park area. The willingness to pay of the population of Belo Horizonte for the future tourist use of the Mangabeiras park was R$ 3.76/year, and the average value of the willingness to pay for the future mineral use was R$ 1.00/year. The total value of the park in 2018, considering the tourist use of the park was R$ 9,405,926.76/year, while for mineral use the total value was R$ 2,501,576/year. It was observed that a large part of the population is not willing to pay for the future uses established in this study. A total of 54.84% of the participants would not pay for both uses, while 32.62% would pay for future tourist use, 11.11% would pay for both uses and 1.43% would pay only for mining. Therefore, the study showed that the population of Belo Horizonte does not have characteristics of green consumers.