ECONOMIC VALUATION OF FOREST ECOSYSTEM SERVICES UNDER PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Expressing the value of forest ecosystem services (FESs) in monetary terms is an important tool to increase awareness and convey the importance of ecosystem services (ESs) to policymakers. It can also be helpful to determine the extent to which compensation should be paid for the loss of ESs and guides in understanding user preferences and the value that current generations place on ESs. It is also important to develop sustainable conservation and management of forest re-sources that have become the focus of current international and local policy agendas like Reduc-ing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). It has urged policymakers and researchers across the world to rethink the existing forest resources management practices and explore alternative approaches that are effective in forest resource conservation. In many developing countries, participatory forest management (PFM) approaches have been imple-mented with the dual objectives of ensuring sustainable forest management (SFM) and improving rural livelihood. PFM has been increasingly recognized as a popular mechanism to incentivize forest-dependent communities to participate in forest conservation and generate livelihood ben-efits from conserved FESs. However, the link between the PFM scheme and FESs is not explicitly known by stakeholders, and hence, researchers give less attention to the evaluation of the impact of PFM on FESs. In addition, there is no clear policy framework for an ESs-based management approach, empirical data, and assessment tools in developing countries. Also, there is little empirical evidence on whether PFM is right now helping carbon sequestration and enhancement. Therefore, there is a need for a refined, scientifically based, and accurate method to evaluate the economic value of FESs to the local community and identify the capacity of PFM in the provision of sustainable FESs. This study is conducted in Northwestern Ethiopia, in the Amhara Region State, in the Gondar Zuria district. The main objectives of this thesis are to evaluate the economic value of FESs, their perceived importance to rural households, the impact of PFM on the sustainability of the FESs, carbon enhancement, and forest vegetation improvement. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant inter-views, forest inventory, and literature reviews. In the data analysis, various descriptive statistics and econometric regression techniques have been used.