Swapping Forests to Preserve Valuable Sites: A Sketch of a Framework for Economic Evaluation

Abstract

In 2012 the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency was provided with 100,000 ha of productive forest land. The Agency swapped the land to obtain conservation-worthy forests, and these were turned into natural reserves. Conservation without reference to both benefits and cost typically results in inefficient solutions. In this paper we discuss how to select the forest stands to preserve in a cost-effective manner. We also discuss how to design a cost-benefit analysis of the swapping program. We provide several new results regarding the economics of preservation, when land swaps is a viable instrument.

Keywords

Cost-effectiveness; cost-benefit analysis; forestry; conservation; uncertainty; risk aversion; nonuse values; key biotopes

Published in

Journal of Forest Economics
2021, volume: 36, number: 3, pages: 183-200
Publisher: NOW PUBLISHERS INC

SLU Authors

• Kriström, Bengt

  • Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Umeå University

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science
Economics

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1561/112.00000521

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/113247