Assessing economic value of community forestry for sustainable rural development

Abstract

Community forestry contributes to the rural economy in a variety of ways: directly as a consumer of land and services to convert biological and other inputs into a variety of outputs; indirectly through its linkages with upstream producers and downstream processing sectors; and indirectly through the re-spending in rural areas of portions of income generated from forestry and related industries. through the provision of non-market benefits; and a pleasant living atmosphere for many people. This study aims to estimate the economic value of community forests in Pajangan, Bantul district. The benefits of community forests can be direct use values and indirect use values. The benefits of Pajangan community forests are estimated using the Total Economic Value (TEV) method. The result shows that TEV of IDR 70,298,307,526 per year, consisting of direct use value of IDR 9,344,000,000 per year, the indirect use value of IDR 35,274,178,836 per year. It is critical to provide economic incentives for communities to participate in sustainable rural development such as ensuring that the full economic value of forests is recognized and reflected in both economic and forestry decision-making, with a focus on economic costs and benefits that accrue at the community level.