Valuing the unvalued recreational ecosystem services in developing cities of sub-Saharan Africa: urban parks in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Being mostly rural, Dar es Salaam has always been characterized by greenery and more recently by green space development. However, the values of these spaces are often not known. Note that these unknown values are common to sub-Saharan Africa. In order to make informed decisions in the management of these spaces, it is important that the values are assessed and documented. In this study, we do so by estimating the economic value of recreational parks in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This is achieved by surveying a random sample of households in Dar es Salaam chosen to be representative of all the different districts of the city. This survey asked residents how much they would be willing to pay for different kinds of parks. We found that residents place a fair value on nature parks. As for neighborhood parks, they are more willing to pay if they are close to their homes.