Valuation of Tangible and Intangible Benefits from Forests - A Case Study of FRI Estaten

Abstract

Forests are key element of terrestrial ecosystem that helps in maintaining ecological balance, biodiversity conservation, protection of watersheds, and control of soil erosion and provide various other ecosystem services. However, of late, forests have been adversely affected by tremendous pressure on account of numerous developmental and social needs such as diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes, timber, fuelwood, NTFP and other goods and services. Insufficient allocation of resources and infrastructure has further aggravated the problems being faced by the forest sector. Lack of public awareness about multiple functions of forests, undervaluation of goods and services provided by forest ecosystems has led to allocation of grossly insufficient funds and facilities to forest departments. With this background the present study was undertaken to demonstrate the valuation of tangible and intangible benefits that the society derives from FRI estate. The results have shown that the selected use and non-use values, viz., forestry research, education and extension, contribution of research in biodiversity conservation, existence & bequest values contributed the maximum i.e., 57.34% followed by values on account of environment attributes such as aesthetic view, climate amelioration and unpolluted environment contributed 32.08% towards the total economic value, which was calculated as Rs.5.89 crore on annual basis. Other goods and services such as direct consumptive and productive benefits, recreational benefits and carbon sequestration accounted for 7.31, 2.76 and 0.50%, respectively. The study has successfully highlighted the importance of intangible benefits from forests and demonstrated the need for proper economic valuation of country’s forests for informed decision making on their management.