Economic Value of the Carbon Sink Services of Tropical Secondary Forests and Its Management Implications

Octavio A. Ramirez1, Carlos E. Carpio1, Rosalba Ortiz2, Brian Finnegan2
1Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA
2Centro AgronómicoTropical de Investigación y Enseñanza, CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica

Tóm tắt

This paper explores the economic feasibility of secondary forest regeneration and conservation as an alternative in the campaign addressing the problem of global warming. Detailed measurements of tropical secondary forests over time, in different ecological zones of Costa Rica, are used to evaluate carbon storage models. The paper addresses key issues in the international discussion about cross- and within-country compensation for carbon storage services and illustrates a method to compute/predict their economic value over time under a variety of scenarios. The procedure is applicable to other developing countries where secondary forest growth is increasingly important.

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