Payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes are programmes that compensate forest communities for refraining from undertaking extractive uses, such as mining, intensive logging, and clearing. PES schemes can be important policy tools in meeting climate targets but effective deployment demands an understanding of local deforestation drivers and host communities’ preferences.
Fitalew is an environmental and resource economist whose research focuses on non-market valuation of environmental goods and services.
Chris is a Professor of Economics and Dean (Research) at the Griffith Business School. He teaches, researches, consults and provides public policy advice on the economic determinants of well-being and the sustainable management of the world around us.
Andrew is a Research Fellow at Griffith Business School with experience as an applied environmental economist focussed on micro-economic valuation and community preferences for natural resource use.
Dr. Glenn Bush is an environmental economist driven by a desire to find equitable resolutions to the long-standing conflict between human development and environmental conservation.
The number of studies on valuation of forest ecosystem services is increasing over time, but limited in covering important regions and forest types. The values are diverse in nature for different forest features and ecological zones. The economic value is greatest when the ecosystem services are considered together, instead of when individual extractive uses are used in insolation.
Economic studies published between 1990 and 2018 from primary forests around the world were reviewed to create a database of forest values. This database represents a ‘meta-analysis’ of the economic values of global forest ecosystem services in a readily comparable measure.
The micro-economics teams from Griffith University and Woods Hole Climate Research Center introduce how environmental economics can play a role in demonstrating – or quantifying (often in dollar terms) many forest values – and economics can also play a role in designing schemes that can help forest communities begin to capture the benefits provided by conservation efforts.