Transformation of environmental recreational goods and services provided by forestry into recreational environmental products

This paper analyses the transformation of public goods and positive externalities provided by forestry, which are defined as Environmental Recreational Goods and Services (ERGS), into marketable private goods and services, which are defined as Recreational Environmental (RE) Products. A questionnaire with the same format was used in the four EU countries participating in the research — Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands — to gather information from 98 actual case studies. The main goal of the paper is the identification of the general paths of transformation. The first part is devoted to the characterisation of the economic nature of public and private goods employing excludability and rivalry criteria. Mixed goods cases are particularly considered as being very relevant for understanding ‘club’ and ‘local’ public goods amongst which many RE-Products must be included. The situation before and after transformation is described and examined, principally in terms of the changes in excludability and rivalry. Paths are then summarised in order to identify some general guidelines to enable the support of the transformation processes under different circumstances, cases and sites. The results of the research demonstrate how these processes are feasible through, as a first step, some changes of institutional factors, followed by new management/marketing approaches: the key for transformation.