Valuation of Carbon Sequestration and Water Supply Services : Two Case Studies from Community Forests of Nepal

Forest provides various goods and services at local, national and global level. The value of forest goods that are traded in the formal market is realized by the local people. However, the value of forest services that are not traded in the formal markets such as carbon sequestration and water supply services needs to be explored for the realization of their importance at local, national and global level. This book mainly deals with quantification of forest carbon stock and assesses economic value of carbon stock and water supply services from the forest. Carbon stock in the forest was estimated through forest inventory and soil sampling whereas its economic value was assessed using replacement cost, market price and marginal damage cost methods. Contingent valuation and avoided cost methods were used to assess economic value of water supply services. The result shows that the community forests have high economic value and may provide substantial economic benefits to the users through developing payment mechanism.