Resource information
The Amazon Rainforest is a global public
good. As such, and given that 15 percent of the original
Amazon forest area has already been lost, households
worldwide might be willing to pay to reduce or avoid
additional losses. A full elicitation of global preferences
for valuing preservation of the current forest, using
stated-preference population surveys, would be costly and
time consuming. Alternatively, this paper uses a Delphi
stated-preference technique in which 48 European
environmental valuation experts were asked to provide
"best guesses" on the possible outcomes of
population surveys in their own countries and Europe as a
whole. The expert judgments indicate willingness to pay in
Europe for preserving the current Amazon Rainforest of about
28 Euro per household per year on average; a slightly lower
value is inferred for a plan that allows a 10 percent future
reduction from the current rainforest area. The income
elasticity of experts' stated willingness to pay with
respect to per-capita income in their own countries is in
the range 0.5-0.8. These findings indicate that Delphi
studies might be used more widely as a tool for global
benefit transfer.
