TRANSACTIONS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSACTIONS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Transactions on Science and Technology Vol. 4, No. 2, 166-173, 2017 Hilmi & Mojiol, 2017. Transactions on Science and Technology. 4(2), 166-173 Contingent Valuation on Urban Trees in City of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Muhammad Azrul Hilmi, Andy R. Mojiol* Forestry Complex, Faculty of Science and Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, MALAYSIA. *Corresponding author:. Email: andy@ums.edu.my; Tel: +6088-320000; Fax: +6088-320876. ABSTRACT: This paper explores the function of urban trees in the City of Kota Kinabalu by finding the perception of public in the City about the trees and using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to find the valuation of urban tree in the city. Willingness to Pay (WTP) was chosen to use in the research to find the economic valuation of urban trees in city of Kota Kinabalu. The payment vehicle in the questionnaire is respondent WTP on donation and the elicitation method is open- ended question. A total of 121 questionnaires were selected for analysis from 154 questionnaires that distributed throughout the research. The majority of respondent are happy with the trees number and the function of trees in the city. Meanwhile, majority of respondent are willing to pay (donation) for increasing the number of trees in the city based on RM 5.00 that elicited. From the maximum WTP that stated, only 64 of questionnaires were selected for estimation of WTP after calculated the weakness of CVM. The mean and median of the WTP is calculated using basic mathematical and the value for mean is RM 7.84, while for the median is RM 5.00. Then, maximum aggregate WTP is calculated based on OLS regression model, maximum aggregate WTP= -2.717+8.481 (NT)- 3.423(BG )+ 4.296 (PG)+0.926 (PD) is find out where initial WTP stated , races, transportation and education have relationship with the WTP respondents stated. Based on the model, the maximum value of WTP is RM 2.54. Then, the total economic value of urban trees in the area based on the valuation, is calculated, for mean is RM 3,629,629.92 , median is RM 2,314,815.00 and maximum aggregate value is RM 1,175,926.02. Using 2% of market interest rate, the present value of the urban trees is RM 1,086,373.87. Keywords: Contingent Valuation, Willingness to Pay, Urban trees, Economic benefits, City of Kota Kinabalu. Received 3 April 2017 Revised 23 April 2017 Accepted 20 May 2017 Online 23 July 2017 © Transactions on Science and Technology 2017 INTRODUCTION The function of urban trees always related with landscape architecture or aesthetic appeal to the urban users but there are many benefits of urban trees to the public. Urban tree also give the same services as any other infrastructure that available in the city (Yaoqi et al., 2007). The impacts of urban trees are equivalent to any other infrastructures to the city, even though it is hard to see with the naked eye. The impacts have shown in less of water bill, gaining of tourists, expertise and businesses to the city (Yaoqi et al., 2007). The benefits of urban trees in Malaysia is still relative new as the country is rarely seen the trees as a symbol of prosperity. The increasing of urban users in developing country such as Malaysia has contributed to increasing of building of infrastructure in the urban area. Hence, the urban trees usually will make way in the urban planning. Besides that, urban trees provided variety of services such as provisioning services, cultural services and regulating services to the urban areas. Thus, this research is to find the opinion of public in city of Kota Kinabalu regarding the services of the urban trees. Ciriacy - Wantrup in 1947 has proposed the first developed survey to measuring all benefits of soil conservation programs that use hypothetical market for public goods, which do not have market value by creating hypothetical scenario, which is called contingent valuation method (CVM) [Smith, 1993]. The use of Contingent valuation Method (CVM) is to measure the use value or non-use value of public goods. The CVM is a survey that use stated monetary method to elicited the amount of an individual willing to pay or receive for change in environment. In contingent valuation, there are two ways how to elicit the amount of money of an individual that is called willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). The use of CVM is famous for valuation of recreation sites as there are many economic valuations of park especially Public Park has been done in previous study. In