IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v68y2008i1-2p336-344.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Cameroon -- Assessing costs and benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Bellassen, Valentin
  • Gitz, Vincent

Abstract

A new momentum is underway to account for emissions from "avoided deforestation and degradation" at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This paper assesses the feasibility of one of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanisms currently discussed, namely that of "Compensated Reduction", in the case of Cameroon. Here we assess the differential revenues that a farmer could get from 1Â ha of land out of two alternative land-uses: shifting cultivation, the traditional land-use pattern in southern Cameroon, or carbon credits as compensation for the conservation of primary forest. It is found that a break-even price of $2.85/t of carbon dioxide equivalent would level shifting cultivation with "Compensated Reduction". This result suggests that at current carbon prices, and independently form variations in the discount rate, it could already be more profitable to preserve the primary forest rather than to log it in order to grow crops.

Suggested Citation

  • Bellassen, Valentin & Gitz, Vincent, 2008. "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Cameroon -- Assessing costs and benefits," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 336-344, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2008:i:1-2:p:336-344
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(08)00148-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Vincent Gitz & Philippe Ciais, 2004. "Future expansion of agriculture and pasture acts toamplify atmospheric CO2 levels in response to fossilfuel and land-use change emissions," Post-Print halshs-00009828, HAL.
    2. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150, December.
    3. Tschakert, Petra, 2004. "The costs of soil carbon sequestration: an economic analysis for small-scale farming systems in Senegal," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 227-253, September.
    4. Kenneth M. Chomitz & Franck Lecocq, 2004. "Temporary sequestration credits: an instrument for carbon bears," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 65-74, March.
    5. Sankhayan, Prem L. & Hofstad, Ole, 2001. "A village-level economic model of land clearing, grazing, and wood harvesting for sub-Saharan Africa: with a case study in southern Senegal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 423-440, September.
    6. van Soest, D.P., 1998. "Tropical Deforestation : An Economic Perspective," Other publications TiSEM 726d991c-92e0-413e-a0a5-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Engelhardt, Sebastian v. & Freytag, Andreas, 2013. "Institutions, culture, and open source," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 90-110.
    2. David K. Evans & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2008. "Prioritizing Educational Investments in Children in the Developing World," Working Papers WR-587, RAND Corporation.
    3. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    4. World Bank, 2015. "Republic of Yemen," World Bank Publications - Reports 23660, The World Bank Group.
    5. Jo Thori Lind & Karl Moene, 2011. "Miserly Developments," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1332-1352, June.
    6. Kenneth Harttgen & Stephan Klasen, 2010. "Fragility and MDG Progress: How useful is the Fragility Concept?," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 41, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    7. Matthew A. Cole & Robert J.R. Elliott & Jing Zhang, 2011. "Growth, Foreign Direct Investment, And The Environment: Evidence From Chinese Cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 121-138, February.
    8. Adalgiso Amendola & Joshy Easaw & Antonio Savoia, 2013. "Inequality in developing economies: the role of institutional development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 43-60, April.
    9. James, Jennifer S. & Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M., 2008. "Agricultural R&D Policy: A Tragedy of the International Commons," Staff Papers 43094, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    10. Danielken Molina, 2008. "Bilateral Transport Cost, Infrastructure, Common Bilateral Ties and Political Stability," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, November.
    11. Gumilang, Howard & Mukhopadhyay, Kakali & Thomassin, Paul J., 2011. "Economic and environmental impacts of trade liberalization: The case of Indonesia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1030-1041, May.
    12. Valeria Costantini & Francesco Crespi, 2013. "Public policies for a sustainable energy sector: regulation, diversity and fostering of innovation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 401-429, April.
    13. Alexis Berg & Philippe Quirion & Benjamin Sultan, 2009. "Weather-index drought insurance in Burkina-Faso: assessment of its potential interest to farmers," Post-Print hal-00520893, HAL.
    14. Kutzbach, Mark J., 2009. "Motorization in developing countries: Causes, consequences, and effectiveness of policy options," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 154-166, March.
    15. J. Ram Pillarisetti & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2008. "Sustainable Nations: What do Aggregate Indicators tell us?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-012/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Poumanyvong, Phetkeo & Kaneko, Shinji & Dhakal, Shobhakar, 2012. "Impacts of urbanization on national transport and road energy use: Evidence from low, middle and high income countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 268-277.
    17. Bas van Leeuwen & Peter Foldvari, 2012. "The development of inequality and poverty in Indonesia, 1932-1999," Working Papers 0026, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    18. Johansson, Pernilla, 2009. "Grants to needy countries? A study of aid composition between 1975 and 2005," Working Papers 2009:19, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    19. Wade D. Pfau, 2008. "Emerging Market Pension Funds and International Diversification," GRIPS Discussion Papers 08-10, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    20. Ravinder Rena, 2008. "Recent Trends in the World Economy: A Case Study of Africa," Journal of Global Economy, Research Centre for Social Sciences,Mumbai, India, vol. 4(2), pages 86-104, June.

    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:68:y:2008:i:1-2:p:336-344. 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.