Program on the Environment

Ecosystem services are the benefits humans receive from nature. Species biodiversity in ecosystems facilitates the production of these services for human consumption. However, current land-use decision-making frameworks fail to take the value of ecosystem services and biodiversity into account. While primary valuation studies remain the most accurate method for monetizing site-specific ecosystem services, the demand for these values exceeds the ability to supply them due to the financial and temporal limitations inherent in primary studies. The benefit transfer method addresses these limitations by using values determined by primary studies in similar sites and transferring them to policy sites. However, benefit transfer sacrifices a large degree of accuracy in its estimates for time and money efficiency. This study aims to explore a new method to value biodiversity through a case study of biodiversity in the Peruvian Amazon. This combined approach uses interview results from local stakeholders to inform the ecosystem services weighted most heavily in the benefit transfer, thus combining elements of the two methods. Interviews revealed that locals valued Information Services most highly. These numbers were compared to a pure benefit transfer valuation of all ecosystem services in Manu National Park. The results showed that the combined method approach produced a lower estimate than the general benefit transfer, but a smaller range of values suggesting higher accuracy. This study will add to the growing body of literature of ecosystem service valuation methodology and provides a platform for further addressing the question of how to produce accurate ecosystem service values in a time and money efficient manner.