Willingness to Pay for Carbon Sequestration and Co-Benefits of Forests in Turkey

Ahmet Tolunay and Çağlar Başsüllü
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Ahmet Tolunay: Faculty of Forestry, Süleyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey
Çağlar Başsüllü: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Sub-regional Office for Central Asia, 06170 Ankara, Turkey

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 3, 1-27

Abstract: Scientists express concern about increasing levels of greenhouse gases mainly due to fossil fuel consumption and deforestation. In response to the latter, policy-makers have introduced a range of policy measures to conserve and enhance forest ecosystems for carbon sequestration. The costs for policy measures to maintain ecosystem services can be calculated easily, but especially non-market/non-use benefits of forests are not easy to estimate. Economics can help designing climate change policies by eliciting public preferences on different attributes of climate change and carbon sequestration. This study was prepared for the purpose of identifying per capita consumer/equivalent surplus or maximum willingness to pay and the total economic value in relation to forests to be established in Turkey to reduce air pollution around cities, to prevent the adverse effects of climate change and to sequester carbon. The data for the estimation of maximum willingness to pay, total economic value and co-benefits of forests were collected with a questionnaire form prepared according to the contingent valuation method. Analyses have been conducted by correlation analysis and regression analysis. According to the analyses, per capita consumer/equivalent surplus or maximum willingness to pay to establish a new forest was estimated at US$ 23.52 on average, while total economic value was estimated at US$ 270,443,962.68.

Keywords: climate change; contingent valuation method; correlation analysis; forest ecosystems; regression analysis; total economic value; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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