Forest Accounting for Development: Capturing the Value of Forests Using Natural Capital Accounting
Although there is information about the economic value of commercial timber, many other contributions of forest accounts may be underestimated or invisible because they have no market price. They could also be missing entirely from national accounts, our primary source of information about the economy. Forests contribute to livelihood of rural populations; they are used for tourism and recreation; and they provide valuable services by protecting watersheds, and storing carbon. Forest Accounts provide a framework to capture the value of all the economic contributions of forests and how they are linked to the economy.