International Willingness to Pay for the Protection of the Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, the world's largest tropical rainforest and an important constituent of the global biosphere, continues degrading by rapid deforestation, which is expected to continue despite policies to prevent it. Current internationa...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/334711552333303292/International-Willingness-to-Pay-for-the-Protection-of-the-Amazon-Rainforest http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31401 |
| Summary: | The Amazon rainforest, the world's
largest tropical rainforest and an important constituent of
the global biosphere, continues degrading by rapid
deforestation, which is expected to continue despite
policies to prevent it. Current international funding to
protect the Amazon rainforest focuses on benefits from
reduced carbon emissions. This paper examines an additional
rationale for Amazon protection: the valuation of its
biodiversity and forests as natural heritage to the
international community. To measure the economic value of
this benefit, the paper examines U.S. and Canadian
households' willingness to pay to help finance Amazon
rainforest protection. The analysis finds that mean
willingness to pay to avoid forest losses projected to occur
by 2050 despite current protective policies is $92 per
household per year. Aggregating across all households and
considering the area protected, the analysis finds that
preserving the Amazon rainforest is worth $3,168 per hectare
(95-percent confidence interval $1,580-$4,756), on average,
to households in the United States and Canada. Considering
households in other developed countries would generate yet
larger estimates of aggregate value, likely comparable to
the carbon benefits from rainforest protection. The results
reveal high values of the Amazon rainforest to people
geographically distanced from it, lending support to
international efforts to reduce deforestation in the Amazon. |
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