Ecosystem service approach of valuing natural forests
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Ecosystem, through its structural and functional components, delivers goods and services to the functioning of ecosystem itself and ecosystem services to the human society. The present paper identifies ecosystem services and stimates economic value of natural forests through ecosystem services provided by Panchase Forest in the Central Mid-hills of Nepal. Transect walk, focus group discussion, key informant interview and expert consultation was made to identify ecosystem services. The economic value was estimated applying ‘total economic valuation’
framework considering both use and non-use values. Use values include consumptive, non-consumptive and indirect uses. Non-use values include option, existence, altruist and bequest values. Market price method was applied to estimate consumptive and indirect use values whereas, travel cost method was applied to estimate non-consumptive use values. Contingent valuation method was applied to estimate non-use values through ‘willingness to pay’. The Panchase Forest provides 17 types of ecosystem services including 6 provisioning, 6 regulating, 2
habitat and 3 cultural and amenity services. The total economic value of the ecosystem services provided by the forest was found to be USD 2.05 million per year. The contribution of consumptive use value, non-consumptive use value, indirect use value and non-use value was found to be 33%, 19%, 23% and 25%, respectively. The consumptive use value, which is recognized by national accounting system, has only one third contribution to total economic value of the forest. This results in the undervaluation of economic contribution of forests in national accounting system and thus in the country’s economic decisions. The present paper has suggested to revisit the current framework of national accounting system recognizing the value of forest ecosystem services in economic decisions.
Keywords: economic value, ecosystem services, protected forest, total economic valuation
ID: 3478750