ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE CARBON SINK SERVICES OF TROPICAL SECONDARY FORESTS AND ITS MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS

This paper explores the economic feasibility secondary forest regeneration and conservation as an alternative to help address global warming. Detailed measurements of tropical secondary forests through time, in different ecological zones of Costa Rica, are used for estimating carbon storage models. The paper addresses key issues in the international discussion about cross- and within-country compensation for carbon storage services and illustrates a method to compute/predict their economic value through time under a variety of scenarios. The procedure is applicable to other developing countries where secondary forest growth is increasingly important.