IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v75y2012icp102-113.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alternative use systems for the remaining Ethiopian cloud forest and the role of Arabica coffee — A cost-benefit analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Reichhuber, Anke
  • Requate, Till

Abstract

This paper presents a cost-benefit analysis of three different use systems for the remaining cloud forests in Ethiopia, which at present are being depleted at the rate of 8% per year. These use systems are a) traditional conversion to crop land, b) sustainable management of the forest (e.g. by growing high-quality, semi-forest coffee), and c) strict conservation. We find that under business as usual conversion to cropland yields the highest net present income value for the local population. Taking into account watershed services, sustainable forest use is in the best interests of the country for discount rates of 10% or lower. Taking into account the global benefits of biodiversity conservation and carbon storage, sustainable forest management also yields the highest total economic value while strict conservation does not pass a cost-benefit test even at a discount rate of 3%.

Suggested Citation

  • Reichhuber, Anke & Requate, Till, 2012. "Alternative use systems for the remaining Ethiopian cloud forest and the role of Arabica coffee — A cost-benefit analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 102-113.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:75:y:2012:i:c:p:102-113
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.01.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800912000080
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.01.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon C. Rausser & Arthur A. Small, 2000. "Valuing Research Leads: Bioprospecting and the Conservation of Genetic Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 173-206, February.
    2. Norman Myers & Russell A. Mittermeier & Cristina G. Mittermeier & Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca & Jennifer Kent, 2000. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6772), pages 853-858, February.
    3. Hein, Lars & Gatzweiler, Franz, 2006. "The economic value of coffee (Coffea arabica) genetic resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 176-185, November.
    4. Richard Carson & Nicholas Flores & Norman Meade, 2001. "Contingent Valuation: Controversies and Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 19(2), pages 173-210, June.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    6. Simpson, R David & Sedjo, Roger A & Reid, John W, 1996. "Valuing Biodiversity for Use in Pharmaceutical Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 163-185, February.
    7. Dinwiddy,Caroline L. & Teal,Francis J., 1996. "Principles of Cost-Benefit Analysis for Developing Countries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521473583, January.
    8. Crewett, Wibke & Bogale, Ayalneh & Korf, Benedikt, 2008. "Land tenure in Ethiopia: Continuity and change, shifting rulers, and the quest for state control," CAPRi working papers 91, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Pagiola, Stefano & Arcenas, Agustin & Platais, Gunars, 2005. "Can Payments for Environmental Services Help Reduce Poverty? An Exploration of the Issues and the Evidence to Date from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 237-253, February.
    10. David Pearce & Corin Pearce & Charles Palmer (ed.), 2002. "Valuing the Environment in Developing Countries," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1838.
    11. Pender, John L., 1996. "Discount rates and credit markets: Theory and evidence from rural india," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 257-296, August.
    12. World Bank, 2005. "Ethiopia : Risk and Vulnerability Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 8693, The World Bank Group.
    13. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.
    14. Holden, Stein T. & Shiferaw, Bekele & Wik, Mette, 1998. "Poverty, market imperfections and time preferences: of relevance for environmental policy?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 105-130, February.
    15. Gil Yaron, 2001. "Forest, Plantation Crops or Small-scale Agriculture? An Economic Analysis of Alternative Land Use Options in the Mount Cameroon Area," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 85-108.
    16. Maria B. Silvarolla & Paulo Mazzafera & Luiz C. Fazuoli, 2004. "A naturally decaffeinated arabica coffee," Nature, Nature, vol. 429(6994), pages 826-826, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Pronti, 2017. "Agroecologia e agricoltura convenzionale a confronto. Un’analisi di sostenibilità socio-economica e ambientale nella produzione familiare di caffè in Brasile/Comparing agroecology and conventional agr," IRCrES Working Paper 201707, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    2. Narita, Daiju & Lemenih, Mulugeta & Shimoda, Yukimi & Ayana, Alemayehu N., 2018. "Economic Accounting of Ethiopian Forests: A Natural Capital Approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 97, pages 189-200.
    3. Viteri-Salazar, Oswaldo & Toledo, Lucía, 2020. "The expansion of the agricultural frontier in the northern Amazon region of Ecuador, 2000–2011: Process, causes, and impact," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Tamagn Woyesa & Satinder Kumar, 2021. "Potential of coffee tourism for rural development in Ethiopia: a sustainable livelihood approach," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 815-832, January.
    5. Luca Di Corato & Tsegaye Ginbo, 2020. "Climate change and coffee farm relocation in Ethiopia: a real-options approach," Working Papers 2020:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Narita, Daiju & Lemenih, Mulugeta & Shimoda, Yukimi & Ayana, Alemayehu N., 2017. "Toward an Accounting of the Values of Ethiopian Forests as Natural Capital," Working Papers 140, JICA Research Institute.
    7. Narita, Daiju & Lemenih, Mulugeta & Shimoda, Yukimi & Ayana, Alemayehu N., 2018. "Economic accounting of ethiopian forests: A natural capital approach," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 189-200.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reichhuber, Anke & Requate, Till, 2007. "Alternative Use Systems for the Remaining Cloud Forest in Ethiopia and the Role of Arabica Coffee - A Cost-Benefit Analysis," Economics Working Papers 2007-07, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    2. Anastasios Xepapadeas & Eva Kougea & Parthenopi Ralli & Sofia Spyrou & Nicolaos Stavropoulos & Vasiliki Tsiaousi & Athanasios Tsivelikas, 2013. "Valuing Services Emerging from a Gene Bank: The Case of the Greek Gene Bank," DEOS Working Papers 1307, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    3. Costello, Christopher & Ward, Michael, 2006. "Search, bioprospecting and biodiversity conservation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 615-626, November.
    4. David Martin, 2014. "An integrated biological and economic individual-based model of tiger protection measures," Working Papers 14-04, Davidson College, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2014.
    5. Charles Palmer & Salvatore Di Falco, 2012. "Biodiversity, poverty, and development," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(1), pages 48-68, Spring.
    6. Liang, Yuanning & Rudik, Ivan & Zou, Eric Yongchen, 2021. "Economic Production and Biodiversity in the United States," SocArXiv qy76a, Center for Open Science.
    7. R. Simpson, 2007. "David Pearce and the economic valuation of biodiversity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(1), pages 91-109, May.
    8. Teklewold, Hailemariam, 2011. "Farming or burning? shadow prices and farmer’s impatience on the allocation of multi-purpose resource in the mixed farming system of Ethiopia," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 116080, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Amy Craft & R. Simpson, 2001. "The Value of Biodiversity in Pharmaceutical Research with Differentiated Products," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 18(1), pages 1-17, January.
    10. Marieka M. Klawitter & C. Leigh Anderson & Mary Kay Gugerty, 2013. "Savings And Personal Discount Rates In A Matched Savings Program For Low-Income Families," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 468-485, July.
    11. Michele Belot & Philipp Kircher & Paul Muller, 2021. "Eliciting time preferences when income and consumption vary: Theory, validation & application to job search," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-013/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Dienes, Christian, 2015. "Actions and intentions to pay for climate change mitigation: Environmental concern and the role of economic factors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 122-129.
    13. Ramesh Govindaraj & Gnanaraj Chellaraj, 2002. "The Indian Pharmaceutical Sector : Issues and Options for Health Sector Reform," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15231.
    14. Polasky, Stephen & Costello, Christopher & McAusland, Carol, 2004. "On trade, land-use, and biodiversity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 911-925, September.
    15. Simpson, R. David, 2002. "Definitions of Biodiversity and Measures of Its Value," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-62, Resources for the Future.
    16. Fisher, Brendan & Christopher, Treg, 2007. "Poverty and biodiversity: Measuring the overlap of human poverty and the biodiversity hotspots," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 93-101, April.
    17. Holden, Stein T. & Tilahun, Mesfin & Sommervoll, Dag Einar, 2022. "Is diminishing impatience in time-dated risky prospects explained by probability weighting?," CLTS Working Papers 3/22, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies.
    18. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2008. "Is the discount rate relevant in explaining the Environmental Kuznets Curve?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 191-207.
    19. Molla Alemayehu & Joost Beuving & Ruerd Ruben, 2019. "Disentangling Poor Smallholder Farmers’ Risk Preferences and Time Horizons: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Ethiopia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(3), pages 558-580, July.
    20. Jagger, Pamela & Pender, John L., 2003. "Impacts of programs and organizations on the adoption of sustainable land management technologies in Uganda," EPTD discussion papers 101, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:75:y:2012:i:c:p:102-113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.