A Participatory Approach to Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Andean Amazonia: Three Country Case Studies for Policy Planning

Rosario Gómez, Julio Aguirre, Luis Oliveros, Renzo Paladines, Néstor Ortiz, Diana Encalada Jumbo and Dolors Armenteras ()
Additional contact information
Rosario Gómez: Department of Economics, Universidad del Pacífico, Jr. Sánchez Cerro 2050, Jesús María, Lima 15072, Peru
Luis Oliveros: Independent Researcher, Ricardo Angulo 618, Lima 15072, Peru
Renzo Paladines: Corporación Naturaleza y Cultura Internacional, Ave. Pío Jaramillo A. y Venezuela, Casilla, Loja 1101332, Ecuador
Néstor Ortiz: Independent Researcher, 86 A St., Nº 13–42, Office 201, Bogotá 110221, Colombia
Dolors Armenteras: Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 30 Nº 45-03, Building 421, Of. 223, Bogotá 111321, Colombia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: Ecosystem services have been steadily incorporated into policy and planning, particularly for conservation. While biophysical and economic values are often part of ecosystems assessments, integrating participatory approaches with these valuation tools into planning is essential. This study demonstrates the importance of undertaking case studies with an integrated approach from valuation to practice. We focus on the evaluation of ecosystem services based on user priorities in three different countries that comprise the northwestern part of the Amazon basin: Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. A total of 473 community and government representatives were interviewed and their priorities for ecosystem services were elicited. We used three approaches to value the prioritized services, market prices, cost avoided, and the value transfer method. We linked the economic valuation results with policy and development alternatives that focus on ES management and we utilized an adaptive policy framework as a crucial step to assess the “trade off” in relation to any given economic, social, and environmental goal. Seven ecosystem services were identified as priorities: fish, timber, and non-timber forest products as provisioning services; disease regulation, water purification, and carbon sequestration as regulating services; and scenic beauty as the only cultural service. The ecosystem services contributing to the highest proportion of local GDP were regulation of malaria (3.9%) in Colombia, followed by ecotourism (1.75%) in Ecuador and fish (1.7%) in Peru. The instruments developed to help integrate this information into policy actions are mostly related to improving the property right systems currently implemented in each country. The results of this study will enable the management of ecosystem service values to be targeted in planning development at the subnational level in each country.

Keywords: land use; environmental policy; land planning; forests; property rights; common resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/4788/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/4788/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:4788-:d:1091050

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Elaine Li

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().