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Abstract
The current study provides an estimation of the economic value of the KutukúShaimi Protected Forest (KSPF) in southeastern Ecuador, of selected environmental goods and services. We estimated the economic value of carbon storage, conservation of fresh water sources, wildlife hunting and opportunity cost of foregone economic activities such as timber extraction and livestock farming. The highest economic value has been carbon storage with 69,579,743.09 US$/year, worth to be awarded by REDD+ programs. Fresh water conservation has not been as important as previously expected, with some 13,647.52 US$/year. The total estimated economic benefits including opportunity cost for KSPF yielded to be of about 70,006,752.24 US$/year.
Keywords: environmental services, communities' participation, benefits transfer, forests conservation, total economic benefits
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INTRODUCTION
Protected areas are considered worldwide to be one of the most effective structures for biodiversity conservation (Langton, 2005). Natural areas conservation is not only key to sustain biological diversity, but also to maintain crucial environmental services such as water storage and filtration, air purification, carbon sequestration and storage, habitat provision, aesthetic and recreation services, among other benefits for nature and man (Badola & Hussain, 2005; Ninan & Inoue, 2013; Anaya et al., 2018). In Ecuador natural protected areas are part of the National Protected Areas System (NPAS or SNAP, by its Spanish initials), which main objective is to conserve and provide connectivity among the most important terrestrial, marine and coastal-marine ecosystems (Palacios et al., 2019). As important as the connectivity among ecosystems, preservation of water and natural resources are also a fundamental component of NPAS objectives. The NPAS is divided in four major subdivisions, being the National Natural Areas Heritage (NNAH), the Private Protected Areas (PPA), Communities Protected Areas (CPA) and the Decentralized Autonomous Government Protected Areas (DAGPA) (MAE, 2018). In addition, there are also other conservation figures such as protected forests. These are part of the National Forestry Heritage areas (NFH) (MAE, 2004). The main objectives of such protected forests are the conservation of environmental services such as water resources and their ecosystems.
Several studies have demonstrated the importance of ecosystems and protected areas as suppliers of environmental goods and services. Some of them focus on National Parks (van Beukering et al., 2003; Hernández & Urbano, 2017; Mayer & Woltering,...