Assessments On Different Values Of Forestry Related Services In Myanmar

Awareness to services of forests is consciously or unconsciously embedded in the mind set of people for many thousands years ago. The first basic pattern of usage on forests might be clearance for farming, firewood for cooking, medicines for illness, material for buildings or ships. These are common patterns of benefits and later other intangible benefits; soil, water, air and biodiversity are apparent after development of scientific observations. In 19th century, people were only assumed that the forest is renewable resources that never exhausted and only some tangible economic benefits were put in national forest account and economic considerations are rarely emphasized on unseen benefits. Forests are always less compensated for its benefits and even compensated, it just only a small part of total ecosystem services that is impossible to return to original dynamic state as ever after destroyed. So far, every country had created unique history of forest development and still evolving to achieve sustainability of forest management. On the other hand, economy of every country is more or less depended on the outputs of forests. Although developed countries, major carbon dioxide emitters, are more favorable to conserve the forests after cleared them for industrial development in 18th century, in developing countries, forests areas are gradually decreased with small amount of compensating to its losses. As consequences, forest ecosystem are deteriorated and affected to all living things surrounded to it. These effects start with local and then expand to regional and global effects. The major outcome is global warming and others may be social, cultural, and economic deficiencies. In the 20st century, global economic development is getting high and people are more relying on forest resources to establish better economy of the country. At the same time, forest conservation is getting more important in worldwide and ecosystem services valuation is carried out among countries because it underpin key cross-cutting national development goals such as diversifying rural livelihoods, reducing poverty, enhancing food security, improving access to basic services, strengthening resilience and disaster risk reduction and adapting to climate change. The study makes assessments on forestry related services and tries to approach the ecosystem services valuation. The assessments underscore the importance of alternative management strategies and take demographic, economic, and sociopolitical into account, in addition to direct drivers of forest land changes. Also, economic losses from different values of forestry related services are calculated to weigh the benefits from land use changes for conservation and development options.