Forest Carbon Supply in Nepal : Evidence from a Choice Experiment
This paper uses a choice experiment conducted in Nepal during 2013 to estimate household-level willingness to participate in a village-level program under the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative requiring reductio...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/437731542634205821/Forest-Carbon-Supply-in-Nepal-Evidence-from-a-Choice-Experiment http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30876 |
| Summary: | This paper uses a choice experiment
conducted in Nepal during 2013 to estimate household-level
willingness to participate in a village-level program under
the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation initiative requiring reductions in fuelwood
collection, as a function of the price paid per unit of
avoided carbon dioxide emissions. The analysis examines
incentives to participate both in villages having formal
community forest management, the core institution for
implementing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation, and villages having only informal forest user
groups. Contrary to previous findings in the literature
about participation incentives, but in keeping with other
recent studies of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation pilots in Nepal, this study finds that
relatively little emission reduction would take place at
prices of $1.00 to $5.00 per ton of avoided carbon
emissions. Formal community forests will almost certainly be
the core institution within which Reduced Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation is implemented in Nepal
and likely other countries. The study finds that average and
median values of payment required for agreement to reduce
fuelwood collection are substantially larger for formal
forest user groups than in informal communities. This
reflects that formal groups likely already have fuelwood
collection restrictions in place, whereas informal groups
may de facto permit open access extraction. The analysis
also suggests that households that are part of informal
groups react to Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation very differently than households that are
formal group members. Broadly speaking,
"underprivileged" formal group member
households, such as those who are landless, female-headed,
and poor, appear to be warier of fuelwood collection
restrictions and thus require higher payments than average
respondents. This difference does not appear to carry over
to informal group members. |
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