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Accounting for India's forest wealth

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  • Atkinson, Giles
  • Gundimeda, Haripriya

Abstract

In this paper, we account for forest wealth in India. Changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita. Important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases, which occur when forests are disturbed, as well as the valuation of these releases. Our empirical findings suggest that while India’s forest wealth is substantial, net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to GNP. However, when viewed in the context of the wealth-diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the (net) loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case. Finally, we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth.
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  • Atkinson, Giles & Gundimeda, Haripriya, 2006. "Accounting for India's forest wealth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 462-476, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:59:y:2006:i:4:p:462-476
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    3. Meenakshi Kaul & G. Mohren & V. Dadhwal, 2011. "Phytomass carbon pool of trees and forests in India," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 243-259, September.
    4. Gundimeda, Haripriya & Sukhdev, Pavan & Sinha, Rajiv K. & Sanyal, Sanjeev, 2007. "Natural resource accounting for Indian states -- Illustrating the case of forest resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 635-649, March.
    5. Shailaja Awasthi & Bijay Yadav & Manoj Panta & Ram Asheshwar Mandal, 2020. "Economic Loss of Timber Caused by Over Stumps and Defects in Community Forests Terai Nepal," International Journal of World Policy and Development Studies, Academic Research Publishing Group, vol. 6(7), pages 74-80, 11-2020.

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