A Cost and Benefit Analysis of the Community Forestry Project in Chumkiri District, Kampot Province, Cambodia

Past experience with the forest management system of Cambodia has shown that the open-access forest scheme has contributed to the decline of timber and non-timber forest products collected from the forests. Authorities have responded by introducing a major program of Community Forestry (CF) in more than 237 CF areas covering 71,724 ha and involving 411,440 people. To assess if this scheme is worth supporting, an economic analysis of a CF managed forest is compared with alternative management schemes in Chumkiri district of Kampot province was carried out. The study examined three scenarios of CF management. In the first management option, the Conservation Option, only 389.5 ha out of 992 ha of forest was used for timber (12.3 m3/ha/yr) and non-timber product collection. The present value of total costs over a 30-year time period at a 10% discount rate was about USD 821,000 (Table A-2). This option could generate benefits of up to USD 6.30 million measured in terms of present value. The second option, the Exploitation Option, involved the exploitation of forest products with CF management. The present value of total costs over a 30-year time period at a 10% discount rate would be USD 1.16 million, and the present value of benefits would be about USD 5.01 million (Table A-3). The third option, which combined the Conservation and Exploitation Options, showed that the present value of total costs over a 30-year time period at a 10% discount rate would be nearly USD 1 million while the present value of benefits would be up to USD 5.92 million (Table A-4). Cost-Benefit Analysis was used to estimate the incremental net benefit of the three CF management options relative to the base case scenario (non-CF management). The study ranked the three options in terms of the incremental net benefit over the base case. The Conservation Option turned out to be the most economically viable, followed by the Combined Option, and lastly by the Exploitation Option. A Sensitivity Analysis showed that the Conservation Option ranked first even under the assumptions of higher price of timber and non-timber products, and different project duration and discount rates.