Benefits of tropical forest management under the new climate change agreement—a case study in CambodiaIntroductionMaterials and methodsCurrent uses of deforested landsNet present values for land use optionsAnnual equivalent value (AEV) for all land use typesResults and discussionsBenefits from forest-to-teakBenefits from forest-to-acaciaBenefits from forest-to-rubberBenefits from forest-to-oil palmClean development mechanism or CDM credit through afforestation and reforestationSensitivity analysis of financial benefits for REDD-plus optionPolicy implicationsConclusionAcknowledgementsSupplementary dataSupplementary dataUNCORRECTED PROOFBenefits of tropical forest management under the newclimate change agreement—a case study in CambodiaNophea Sasakia,*, Atsushi YoshimotobaGraduate School of Applied Informatics, University of Hyogo, 1-3-3-22F Higashikawasaki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-004, JapanbThe Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8562, Japan1. IntroductionTropical deforestation was responsible for the annual releaseof about 5.5 (IPCC, 2007; Gullison et al., 2007) to 8.1 bil-lion tonne CO2year1(Houghton, 2003) in the 1990s. Conse-quently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) has recognized the prevention of carbon emissionsfrom tropical forests as the largest and most immediatecarbon stock impact in the short term. In addition, forestdegradation (the loss of commercial and large trees, treesdamaged by unplanned logging and fires) may account foranother 25–42% of carbon emissions from tropical forests inAsia (Flint and Richards, 1994; Iverson et al., 1994) and 132%from Africa (Gaston et al., 1998). World leaders recently met inCopenhagen to discuss new climate change agreement toreplace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. Although abinding commitment for greenhouse gas emission reductionwas not reached, global climate change mitigation throughreducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation(REDD), promoting sustainable forest management, andenhancing carbon sinks (hereafter referred to as REDD-plus)in the Copenhagen Accord was reached at the FifteenthConference of the Parties (COP15) to the United NationsConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2009.REDD-plus recognition coupled with a new pledge of annualfast-start funds of about US$3.5 billion between 2010 and 2012environmental science & policy xxx (2010) xxx–xxx12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637article infoKeywords:Carbon priceDeforestationForest degradationFinancial returnsForest management costsOpportunity costsREDD-plusabstractPromoting sustainable forest management as part of the reduced emissions from defores-tation and degradation in developing countries (REDD)-plus mechanism in the CopenhagenAccord of December 2009 implies that tropical forests will no longer be ignored in the newclimate change agreement. As new financial incentives are pledged, costs and revenues on a1-ha tract of tropical forestland being managed or cleared for other land use options need tobe assessed so that appropriate compensation measures can be proposed. Cambodia’shighly stocked evergreen forest, which has experienced rapid degradation and deforesta-tion, will be the first priority forest to be managed if financial incentives through a carbonpayment scheme are available. By analyz ing forest inventory data, we assessed the rev-enues and costs for managing a hypothetical 1 ha of forestland against six land use options:business-as-usual timber harvesting (BAU-timber), forest management under the REDD-plus mecha nism, forest-to-teak plantation, forest-to-acacia plantation, forest-to-rubberplantation, and forest-to-oil palm plantation. We determined annual equivalent valuesfor each option, and the BAU-timber and REDD-plus management options were the highest,with both options influenced by logging costs and timber price. Financial incentives shouldbe provided at a level that would allow continuation of sustainable logging and be attractiveto REDD-plus project developers.# 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.* Correspond ing author. Tel.: +81 78 367 8620; fax: +81 78 367 8620.E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Sasaki).ENVSCI 802 1–9Please cite this article in press as: Sasaki, N., Yoshimoto, A., Benefits of tropical forest management under the new climate changeagreement—a case study in Cambodia. Environ. Sci. Policy (2010), doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.04.007available at www.sciencedirect.comjournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci1462-9011/$ – see front matter # 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.04.007UNCORRECTED PROOFsuggests that sustainable forest management in the tropicswill be promoted to include sustaining timber production andother ecosystem services.Defined here as managing forests for sustained flow of timberand other ecosystem services, sustainable forest managementcould be achieved if logging regulations are strictly followed,and with the right incentives (Pearce et al., 2003). Financialincentives for managing tropical forests that would be madeavailable under the REDD-plus mechanism must be compara-ble to incentives from other land use options; otherwiseclearing of natural forests for land use with high financialreturns could not be prevented. Although various studies onthe costs for avoiding tropical deforestation have been carriedout in recent years (van Kooten et al., 2004; Bellassen and Gitz,2008; Kindermann et al., 2008), only a handful of studies havefocused on the costs for managing tropical forests (Kim Phatet al., 2004; van Kooten et al., 2004; Karky and Skutsch, 2010).Yet, important parameters, such as the costs for loggingplanning, harvesting, transporting, reforesting, wood proces-sing, selling, and fees, and revenues from the sale of timberwere not explicitly taken into consideration in the abovestudies. The REDD-plus mechanism would likely require thatsuch parameters be incorporated in the estimates of costs ofand revenues from managing tropical forests.Deforestation and logging were responsible for the releaseof about 50.3 million t CO2year1from natural forests inCambodia during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (Sasaki, 2006).Although a logging ban was imposed in 2002, forested landsare continuously granted as land concessions for industrialplantations without proper assessment of the long-termfinancial returns from each land use option. In this studywe