Willingness to pay for forest management activities fostering biodiversity In the course of a Swiss research project, the people's valuation of forest management activities fostering biodiversity was evaluated. To do so, a willingness to pay approach was chosen and a choice experiment (a special kind of opinion survey) was carried out. The results show that people accept a slightly higher tax burden to finance forest management activities which foster biodiversity. However, not all aspects of biodiversity are valued the same: the promotion of genetic diversity within forest tree populations, which is rather important from a biological point of view, was not appreciated at all by the respondents, whereas the promotion of endangered animal and tree species and the promotion of vegetation left in its natural state were rather highly valued. The willingness to pay for the promotion of forest biodiversity amounts to about 40 to 80 Swiss francs per year and household. Projected on the total Swiss population, the willingness to pay adds up to 140 to 270 mio. Swiss francs per year. In the political decision-making process willingness to pay measures for different forest management activities can provide valuable arguments and be an indicator for the feasibility of measures and projects.