The Economic Value of Forests: An Analysis of the Provisioning Services of Laokhowa and Burhachapori Wildlife Sanctuaries of Assam, India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36808/if/2019/v145i10/149249Keywords:
Economic Valuation, Environmental Services, Missing Market, Ecosystem Services (ESS), Anthropogenic Pressure.Abstract
Economic valuation is a process of ascribing monetary values to the unquantifiable social and environmental services of the eco-system. The need for valuation arises since the intangible services of an ecosystem are not taken into account while making environmental decision making leading thereby to missing markets and eventually to their exploitation and loss. This paper seeks to estimate values of provisioning services of the forest ecosystem of Laokhowa and Burhachapori Wildlife Sanctuaries of Assam in North East India. Once good repositories of floral and faunal diversity the sanctuaries suffered huge setback during eighties of the last century and presently grappling for survival due to huge anthropogenic pressures. Using primary data from 302 fringe households, the study identifies nine important provisioning services harvested by the fringe people. Besides providing nutritional security, these services fulfil occasional cash shortage of the collectors. Using market price method, this paper quantifies the value of the provisioning services of both the sanctuaries together to be 8.7 million. The paper further attempts to estimate the per hectare value of the sanctuaries on account of the provisioning services, including grazing, and finds it to be worth 7685.6 ($106).References
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