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Economic Valuation of Provisioning and Cultural Services of A Protected Mangrove Ecosystem: A Case Study On Sundarbans Reserve Forest, Bangladesh
Economic Valuation of Provisioning and Cultural Services of A Protected Mangrove Ecosystem: A Case Study On Sundarbans Reserve Forest, Bangladesh
Economic Valuation of Provisioning and Cultural Services of A Protected Mangrove Ecosystem: A Case Study On Sundarbans Reserve Forest, Bangladesh
Ecosystem Services
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser
art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The Sundarbans Reserve Forest, the world's largest mangroves covering 6000 km2 in Bangladesh,
Received 16 September 2012 provides a variety of ecosystem services. The real contribution of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest to the
Received in revised form national economy has not been evaluated so far. This study aims to provide an economic estimation of
19 June 2013
the provisioning and cultural services of the Sundarbans. Ofcial records of revenue collected by the
Accepted 8 July 2013
Available online 27 July 2013
Forest Department were the sources of information used in the economic valuation of the forest.
The major provisioning services of the Sundarbans are timber, fuel wood, sh, thatching materials, honey
Keywords: and waxes. And the main culture service is tourism. The provisioning and cultural services provided by
Economic valuation the Sundarbans contributed to revenue of the Forest Department on an average US$ 744,000 and US$
Ecosystem services
42,000 per year respectively during nancial year 20012002 to 20092010. The revenue collection from
Mangrove
the forest products and tourism showed increasing trend over the study period, except for the timbers.
Sundarbans Reserve Forest
Bangladesh The Forest Department produces economic benets out of the ecosystem services without knowing the
optimum limits and how long they can harness the economic benets. A comprehensive economic
valuation of the total stock and potential of all the ecosystem services of the Sundarbans as well as
dening limits of sustainable yield of the services under different socio-economic and climate change
scenarios would be necessary to enhance sustainable management of the forest.
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2212-0416/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2013.07.002
Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93 e89
importance to the regional and global contexts, the SRF was declared surrounding the SRF as Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) where
as Ramsar site in 1992 and the UNESCO has recognized three wildlife development activities are restricted.
sanctuaries (around 140,000 ha area) of this forest as a World Similar to other mangroves, the ecosystem services of the
Heritage Site in 1997 (Islam, 2003). Recently in 2010, the Depart- Sundarbans Reserve Forest can be categorized under four types-
ment of Environment (DoE) has declared 10 km buffer zone provisioning, cultural, regulatory and supporting services. The well
e90 Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93
recognized ecosystem services such as provisioning services (e.g. annually, whereas possible annual yield of resources would be more
timber, sh) and cultural services (e.g. tourism) has been taken important to FD to determine the potential economic benet from SRF.
into account in the management system of the Sundarbans Similarly, the economic value of cultural services was estimated
Reserve Forest with a view of revenue generation rather than for tourism - the only marketable cultural service of the Sundar-
resources conservation. Commercial harvesting of Timbers, the bans. Both domestic and international tourists were the sources of
main forest resource of SRF, has been continuing till late 1980s tourism income from the Sundarbans. The annual revenue earned
through paid permits given by the Bangladesh Forest Department. from tourism service in a particular scal year was considered as
Due to reduction in growing stock, moratorium was imposed in economic value of tourism over that year. Available records on
1989 for timber harvesting from SRF in large scale, and gradually total number of domestic and international tourists who visited
all types of timber harvesting including fuel wood collection was the Sundarbans and annual revenue earned during the 20012002
banned by 1995. However, extraction of non-timber forest pro- to 20092010 years were collected from the Forest Department.
ducts like golpata (Nipa sp.), sh, honey and others have been The original data of revenue taken in local currency (Taka) was
continuing, except a temporary moratorium imposed on all types converted to US$ with appropriate conversion factors for corre-
of resources during 20082009 due to Cyclone Sidr which hit the sponding years of the study period, which allowed to estimate the
Sundarbans on 15th November 2007 (IPAC, 2010). On the other changes of economic value over the period.
hand, the cultural services, mainly tourism has been increasing
over the years with improved facilities by Forest Department and 3. Results
private tour operators, generated huge revenue for FD. The other
ecosystem services like regulatory (e.g. protection from cyclone) 3.1. Economic value of provisioning services of the SRF
and supporting services (e.g. habitat) were barely emphasized in
the management initiatives of this forest probably due to lack of The Provisioning services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest
information about the intangible benets of these services. includes mainly timbers and non-timber forest products. The forest
Although harnessing the economic benet was the key manage- houses a variety of economically valuable timber species such as
ment objective, proper economic evaluation of the ecosystem services Sundri (Heritiera fomes), Baen (Avicennia ofcinalis), Keora (Sonneratia
of this forest was not done yet. A well accounted economic valuation apetala), Passur (Xylocarpus mekongensis), Gewa (Excoecaria agallocha).
of the ecosystem services of the Sundarbans might facilitate sustain- The major non-timber forest products include fuelwood (plant species
able management of the ecosystem services the forest provides. This such as Goran (Ceriops decandra), Hantal (Phoenix paludosa), Kakra
paper presents economic valuation of provisioning and cultural (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza)), Thatching materials (Goalpata (Nypa fruti-
services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest which will be guiding in cans) and Grasses (Eriochloa procera)) and shes (Bagda (Penaeus
developing sustainable management system for the forest. monodon), Golda (Macrobrachiurn rosenbergii) shrimp, white sh,
mollusk, crabs). Further, minor forest products such as honey, wax,
and medicinal plants are harvested from the Sundarbans.
2. Methods The estimated average annual revenue for all types of provisioning
services was around US$ 744,000 per year during nancial year 2001
Economic valuation of ecosystem services can be obtained 2002 to 20092010. Among all products, revenue earning was highest
through Direct and Indirect estimation methods as applied by from timber (US$ 0.4 million), followed by sh (US$ 0.2 million),
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005). Direct valuation thatching materials, fuel wood, crab and honey and wax (Fig. 2).
method would be applicable to the marketable products or services, The amount of timber harvested was about 3567 m3 per year
whereas the services for which market does not exist are evaluated during the period of 20012002 to 20092010, mainly from the seized
by Indirect valuation methods (De Groot et al., 2002). timbers from encroachers as well as felled trees by cyclone or other
In this study, we consider valuation of the provisioning and cultural natural calamities, as there was moratorium imposed on commercial
services of the Bangladesh Sundarbans Reserve Forest which has real timber extraction. The revenue collected was US$ 0.4 million per year
markets using Direct valuation methods. Since Forest Department, over this period with a decreasing trend (Fig. 3). The value of timber
being the custodian of the SRF, determines the revenue from different depends on the type of timber species and quality rather than total
types of forest products including tourism, the real competitive market volume of timber only. For instance, average revenue for Sundri timber
does not exists for the rst stage selling point, i.e. from the Forest was US$ 6 per m3 whereas average revenue for Gewa timber was US$
Department to the resource collectors, hence the economic value of 0.48 per m3.
the services can only be determined from the revenue obtained for
each service, rather than the real market price which is substantially
Honey and Wax
higher than the revenue received by the Forest Department. For the
Forest Department, the revenue earned from the services would be
Crab
Provisioning services
the economic benets only, rather the higher economic value of the
services when they enters to the local and national market which does
not bring any economic benets to the Forest Department. Fuel wood
Therefore, the economic value of the provisioning services includ-
ing timber, fuel wood, thatching materials, sh, crab, and honey was Thatching materials
estimated using the aggregate of annual revenue earned by Forest
Department from all types of provision services of the Sundarbans Fish
over a scal year. Historical records of revenues earned from each of
the provisioning services were retrieved from the sales documents
maintained by the FD for the nancial years 20012002 to 20092010.
Timber
Total stock of different types of provisioning services such as timber,
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
sh, is not evaluated in this study because two reasons: one is
unavailability of realistic information on the stocks; the other reason Average annual revenue in thousands US$
is that the estimated economic value of the total stock would not give Fig. 2. Item-wise average annual revenue from provisioning services of the
any indication how much economic benet the SRF can provide to FD Sundarbans (20012002 to 20092010).
Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93 e91
1400
1365 Domestic tourists
117.10
150
Percentage of change (%) in total
1200
International tourists
97.72
94.75
92.63
120
annual revenue
83.71
800
69.08
600
90
58.74
49.37
400
46.89
230 247
200 60
19
0
2.12
2.16
1.94
1.71
1.58
1.48
1.26
0.73
0.43
Timber Fuel wood Thatching Fish Honey and Crab
materials Wax
0
Fig. 3. Change of total annual revenue from different provisioning services over a
9-year period (from 20012002 to 20092010).
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