Valuing natural capital and its distribution in the Congo Basin forests

Efforts to balance national economic development and global environmental sustainability in the forests of the Congo Basin can be informed by natural capital accounting. We contribute an initial estimate of the gross value of the Congo Basin forests (in 2019) for four provisioning services (industrial timber, artisanal timber, fuelwood, and bushmeat), one cultural service (tourism), and one regulating service (carbon sequestration). We estimate the distribution of ecosystem service values across land use categories, based in part on mapping customary tenures using a cumulative cost method, thus tying value production and associated incentives to the economic agents who manage forest natural capital. We find a total (i.e. regional) gross annual value for the Congo Basin forests of 2019 USD$ 7.8 billion (equivalent to 6.3% of regional GDP; comparisons with GDP are indicative only because our figures include the value of intermediate inputs). Total gross value is evenly split between lands under legally recognized statutory tenure and areas under alternative tenure arrangements. Values per unit land range from a high of $159.16/ha in community forests to a low of $0.10/ha in Pygmy areas. For carbon services, we compare three prominent approaches for estimating volumes. We find marked variation in both total volumes and the distribution of volumes across public and private economic agents, with significant implications for ongoing efforts to monetize carbon services in the Congo Basin. Our approach and results address critical issues not only of the value of forest assets in the Congo Basin (as well as attendant ambiguities), but also to whom this natural capital value might accrue if demonstrated value is aligned with value realization.