| Early in 1998, the government of Brazil announced it was setting aside 2.7 million hectares of public land to "foster sustainable logging and slow the rate of rainforest destruction." Brazil's Environmental Institute (IBAMA) claims that the establishment of these national parks will allow for greater control of logging firms' operations in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmentalists such as Paulo Lyra from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) applauded the move, but note that "the government must still draw up a law to regulate how loggers may operate in the forests."1 This study considers management policy options for Brazilian rainforest, and the methodology and models used may be generalized to help shape rainforest management policy elsewhere in the world.; Chapter One discusses background issues related to intergenerational natural resource use and their implications for long run preservation and provides a theoretical background for the methods used in this study. Chapter Two summarizes pertinent literature, and gives an overview of the methodologies of the contingent valuation technique and natural resource modeling. Chapter Three outlines the internet survey used in this study, and the results thereof Chapter Four utilizes parameters from the tropical timber market and the results of the survey to find numerical solutions to the management problem faced by the government of Brazil in a section of the Amazon Rainforest. Chapter Five discusses the outcome of the study and provides some suggestions for future research.; 1Reuters, Brazilia, Feb. 3, 1998. |
