ELICITING FOREST VALUES FOR COMMUNITY PLANTATIONS AND NATURE CONSERVATION

Abstract

This paper outlines a participatory method for eliciting forest values and ‘cultural loss’ by gender and ethnic group and is illustrated with data collected from four ethnic groups who live in The Lugu Lake Nature Reserve (Ninglang County, Yunnan, China). A set of 13 forest values are recognized by most groups, but there are significant differences between the forest value sets on the basis of ethnicity and gender, and ‘commercial values’ typically used by economists for cost: benefit analysis (CBA) & internal rate of return (IRR) calculations represent only 6% of the sum total of scaled⁴ forest values (STSFV). The methodology is based on the psychometric scaling of forest values (1–100) which can be expressed as a % or rank order, and is easy to replicate. It has application both for Nature Reserves, biodiversity and for sustainable forestry programmes predicated on forest values or co-management. Further work is required to remove anomalies in the Chinese (and ethnic) terms used, to identify a suitable numeraire⁵ if contingent valuation methodology (CVM) or total economic value (TEV) is to be applied, and to evaluate the relevance of forest-related ‘identity’ and ‘place attachment’ values.