The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure: Evidence from Brazil and Guatemala

For the first time, economists from the World Resources Institute (WRI) were able to quantify the economic value of securing land rights for indigenous and local communities. Their report provides benefit-cost analyses of community forest tenure in Brazil's Indigenous Territories and Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, to provide a comparison for policymakers and funding agencies.

Over 20 years, the WRI researchers expect that secure rights to community forests will prevent the release of over 5.4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) from the two regions. WRI estimated the mitigation costs as US$0.39 per tCO2e in Brazil and US$7.37 per tCO2e in Guatemala.

The report suggests that, in the study areas, the economic benefits of securing community forest tenure outweigh the costs.