Valuation of Visitor Perception of Urban Forest Ecosystem Services in Kuala Lumpur

Urban forests play a vital role in maintaining the city ecological balance and providing ecosystem services to citizens. Ecosystem services lead to better quality of life, better environmental quality, and more sustainable urban growth. However, many emerging nations have often progressed at the price of lowering and sacrificing forest coverage, which has a negative impact on the benefits that the public receives from natural green spaces. As a result, the goals of this research were to ascertain visitor impressions of urban forests in Kuala Lumpur, to assess the value assigned by visitors to urban forests in Kuala Lumpur, and to investigate the elements that impact the willingness to pay. A questionnaire-based field study was conducted on a total of 254 respondents among Taman Tugu Urban Forest visitors, Kuala Lumpur. The results show that visitor perceptions of regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services were positive, with high-level score values of 4.74, ±0.40, 4.69, ±0.37, and 4.70, ±0.50. Furthermore, provisioning services were perceived to be of moderately high level (3.49, ±1.12), and visitor perceptions of urban forest amenities were positive, with high-level scores (4.39, ±0.53). Overall, this indicates that visitors had a very good perception of Taman Tugu Urban Forest ecosystem services. However, when we looked at the factors that contributed to the willingness to pay for the conservation of urban forests and entry, only the perception of the amenities provided at Taman Tugu had a significant relationship with the willingness to pay. A total of 79.1% of visitors expressed their willingness to pay, for forest conservation, an average payment value of MYR 51.32 per year, while 65% of visitors were willing to pay, as entry fees at urban forests, an average payment value of MYR 3.07 per person. It can be concluded that visitors had a positive perception of urban forests in Kuala Lumpur and were willing to contribute for conservation and entry fee purposes. We hope that the findings of this research contribute to a better understanding of urban forest ecosystem services in Kuala Lumpur and visitor perception. In addition, this study could also be useful to policy makers to formulate a specific policy focus on urban forests by comprehensively and holistically including the monetary value of the ecosystem services provided, considering public opinion and needs, and performing financial allocation for conserving and managing urban forests. This is to ensure that the urban sustainable development goals and smart city aims can be achieved.