The Korean government has been carrying out the marine ranch development project since 1998 with the purpose of responding to the decrease in coastal fishery resources and fishery income, preparing a systematic management system for the sustainable use of fishery resources and realizing advanced fisheries power by expanding and upgrading fisheries resource development projects. In addition, the government established the Korea Fisheries Resources Agency and promoted projects for the protection and management of fishery resources by increasing basic productivity by artificially creating marine forests in areas where whitening events occur. Since the project of building marine ranches and marine forests requires immense government financial support, it is important to estimate the economic value and thoroughly evaluate the feasibility of the project. In this paper, the project of non-market economic value of the development of marine ranches and the development of marine forests was estimated. CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) was applied as a methodology for benefits estimation. Prior to the analysis, a one-on-one interview survey was conducted with participation of 512 residents and 514 residents respectively for the project of creating a marine ranch and developing a marine forest. A DBDC (Double-Bounded Dichotumous Choice) model was applied in the WTP (Willingness To Pay) analysis model and the socioeconomic variables of the surveyor, such as sex, age, education and income, were reflected in the model. The economic benefits from the two projects, namely, building of marine ranches and developing marine forests were estimated to be equal to 4,608 won and 7,772 won per household per year, respectively. According to the results of the survey, it seems that respondents think that marine forests are more valuable than marine ranches. This is as a result of ordinary citizens’ thought that the marine ranches are more cost-effective than the marine forests. The benefits estimated through this study can be used for analysis of economic feasibility prior to carrying out the project of building marine ranches and developing marine forests, and are considered to be the valuable for policy-making purposes and finding social and economic consensus.

This study is to evaluate economic value of the ecosystem service benefits of the marine forests provided to our society on the basis of the global standard valuation manual. The main results of this study are summarized as follows: First, the ecosystem service benefits of marine forests are worth 771,121,551 won per hectare for a year in Korea. Second, when evaluating value based on the services benefits of the marine forests, as resource provisioning service, the annual value of the fishery potential production amounts to 58,512,271 won per hectare. The annual value of the environmental and regulatory services is estimated to total 29,574,000 won per hectare including 546,488 won per hectare for climate regulation, 85,342 won per hectare for pollution purification, and 28,942,170 won per hectare for erosion protection. The annual value of the culture and tourinsm services is estimated to total 15,317,647 won per hectare including 5,011,765 won per hectare for skin scuba service and 10,305,882 won per hectare for sea fishing. Also, the aunnual non-use value is estimate to 637,800,000 won per hectare. Third, assuming that the value of the sea forests increases proportionally to the unit area, the marine forests can be valued at 12.7 trillion won per year based on 12,208.2 hectares of marine forests creation area and 4,272.6 hectares of natural seaweed beds. Fourth, the total economic value of the marine forests can be estimated at 244 trillion won in 2016, if the value of the marine forests permanently continues in the future by applying 5.5% of the social discount rate. The results of this study are expected to serve as a valuable information for improving awareness of the value of marine forests ecosystem and ensuring the validity of the marine forests creation policy by converting the value of the marine forests's ecosystem service into monetary units.