Rainforest Conservation: Economic Benefits

University of Alberta-Edmonton scientists say the benefits of preserving a rainforest reserve can outweigh the costs of maintaining it.

While many studies have examined costs or benefits of environmental conservation, researchers Robin Naidoo and Wiktor Adamowicz said few have performed a simultaneous cost-benefit conservation analysis.

So the World Wildlife Fund scientists undertook an analysis of the Mabira Forest Reserve in Uganda, to see if protecting that high-biodiversity forest was economically viable.

The Mabira reserve generates some revenue through ecotourism, and the researchers found current fees greatly undervalued tourists’ willingness-to-pay. Tourists indicated the reserve’s high bird diversity was one of its main attractions.

Naidoo and Adamowicz determined by increasing fees and redistributing revenues, the reserve could protect up to 90 percent of its bird species. In addition, revising fees would lower the overall number of tourists, thus reducing the potential negative effects of human visitation.

They said, conversely, it would be economically prohibitive to restore agricultural land back to forest — suggesting it’s far more effective to conserve tropical reserves now than restore them in the future.

Their study appears in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.