Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93

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Ecosystem Services
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser

Economic valuation of provisioning and cultural services of a protected

mangrove ecosystem: A case study on Sundarbans Reserve
Forest, Bangladesh
Md. Shams Uddin a,b,n, E. de Ruyter van Steveninck a, Mishka Stuip a,
Mohammad Aminur Rahman Shah c
a
Department of Environmental Resources, UNESCO-IHE, PO Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, the Netherlands
b
Environment and Forest, Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), House no. 7/4, Block A, Lalmatia, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh
c
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh Country Ofce, House-16, Road-2/3, Banani, Dhaka 1213, Bangladesh

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Sundarbans Reserve Forest, the world's largest mangroves covering 6000 km2 in Bangladesh,
Received 16 September 2012 provides a variety of ecosystem services. The real contribution of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest to the
Received in revised form national economy has not been evaluated so far. This study aims to provide an economic estimation of
19 June 2013
the provisioning and cultural services of the Sundarbans. Ofcial records of revenue collected by the
Accepted 8 July 2013
Available online 27 July 2013
Forest Department were the sources of information used in the economic valuation of the forest.
The major provisioning services of the Sundarbans are timber, fuel wood, sh, thatching materials, honey
Keywords: and waxes. And the main culture service is tourism. The provisioning and cultural services provided by
Economic valuation the Sundarbans contributed to revenue of the Forest Department on an average US$ 744,000 and US$
Ecosystem services
42,000 per year respectively during nancial year 20012002 to 20092010. The revenue collection from
Mangrove
the forest products and tourism showed increasing trend over the study period, except for the timbers.
Sundarbans Reserve Forest
Bangladesh The Forest Department produces economic benets out of the ecosystem services without knowing the
optimum limits and how long they can harness the economic benets. A comprehensive economic
valuation of the total stock and potential of all the ecosystem services of the Sundarbans as well as
dening limits of sustainable yield of the services under different socio-economic and climate change
scenarios would be necessary to enhance sustainable management of the forest.
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Background 15.6 million hectares in 2010. Only few of them remained as

Mangroves ecosystems, lying along the coastlines in the tropics
and subtropics, provides a number of ecosystem services such as
provisioning services (e.g. typical forest products, sheries), cultural
services (e.g. tourism, worship, educational research), regulatory
services (e.g. protection from cyclones and storm surges, ood
regulation, climate regulation) and supporting services (e.g. nursery
ground of sh, nutrient cycling, habitat of biodiversity) (Karim, 1994;
Kathiresan and Rajendran, 2005; Barbier, 2007; Walters et al., 2008).
Local and national economy as well as the forest dependent
livelihoods are greatly inuenced by these mangrove forests. Natural
mangroves in many parts of the world disappeared due to over-
exploitation and uncontrolled management practices. Globally man-
groves have decreased from around 16.1 million hectares in 1990 to
n
Corresponding author at: Environment and Forest, Bangladesh Water Develop-
ment Board (BWDB), House no. 7/4, Block A, Lalmatia, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh.
Tel.: +880 28100452, mobile: +880 1936 907 500; fax: +880 28100451.
E-mail address: msuddin.shams@gmail.com (Md.S. Uddin).
protected areas (FAO, 2010).
The largest single patch of protected mangrove forest the
Sundarbans is located in southern coast of Bangladesh and India,
which was declared as Reserve Forest in 18751876 to protect it
from deforestation and for systematic resources exploitation
(Hoq, 2007). Bangladesh part of Sundarbans covers about
6000 km2, the other 4000 km2 of the forest is located in India.
By the end of British rule in 1947, the Sundarbans has gone under
two separate management authorities in India and East Pakistan
(later Bangladesh) keeping almost similar management system.
This study considers the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans only.
The Sundarbans Reserve Forest (SRF) of Bangladesh (Fig. 1)
houses 300 species of ora and 425 species of fauna, some of which
are threatened and endangered (Biswas et al., 2007). Royal Bengal
Tiger (Panthera tigris) is the iconic agship species of this forest. In
addition, there are 291 sh species in the Sundarbans. More than
3.5 million people living around the Bangladesh Sundarbans are
directly or indirectly dependent on the ecosystem services of the
forest (Giri et al., 2007). Realizing the ecological and socio-economic

2212-0416/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2013.07.002
 Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93 e89

Fig. 1. Map of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh.

Source: FD, 2010.

importance to the regional and global contexts, the SRF was declared
as Ramsar site in 1992 and the UNESCO has recognized three wildlife
sanctuaries (around 140,000 ha area) of this forest as a World
Heritage Site in 1997 (Islam, 2003). Recently in 2010, the Depart-
ment of Environment (DoE) has declared 10 km buffer zone
surrounding the SRF as Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) where
development activities are restricted.
Similar to other mangroves, the ecosystem services of the
Sundarbans Reserve Forest can be categorized under four types-
provisioning, cultural, regulatory and supporting services. The well
e90 Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93
recognized ecosystem services such as provisioning services (e.g.
timber, sh) and cultural services (e.g. tourism) has been taken
into account in the management system of the Sundarbans
Reserve Forest with a view of revenue generation rather than
resources conservation. Commercial harvesting of Timbers, the
main forest resource of SRF, has been continuing till late 1980s
through paid permits given by the Bangladesh Forest Department.
Due to reduction in growing stock, moratorium was imposed in
1989 for timber harvesting from SRF in large scale, and gradually
all types of timber harvesting including fuel wood collection was
banned by 1995. However, extraction of non-timber forest pro-
ducts like golpata (Nipa sp.), sh, honey and others have been
continuing, except a temporary moratorium imposed on all types
of resources during 20082009 due to Cyclone Sidr which hit the
Sundarbans on 15th November 2007 (IPAC, 2010). On the other
hand, the cultural services, mainly tourism has been increasing
over the years with improved facilities by Forest Department and
private tour operators, generated huge revenue for FD. The other
ecosystem services like regulatory (e.g. protection from cyclone)
and supporting services (e.g. habitat) were barely emphasized in
the management initiatives of this forest probably due to lack of
information about the intangible benets of these services.
Although harnessing the economic benet was the key manage-
ment objective, proper economic evaluation of the ecosystem services
of this forest was not done yet. A well accounted economic valuation
of the ecosystem services of the Sundarbans might facilitate sustain-
able management of the ecosystem services the forest provides. This
paper presents economic valuation of provisioning and cultural
services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest which will be guiding in
developing sustainable management system for the forest.
2. Methods
Economic valuation of ecosystem services can be obtained
through Direct and Indirect estimation methods as applied by
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005). Direct valuation
method would be applicable to the marketable products or services,
whereas the services for which market does not exist are evaluated
by Indirect valuation methods (De Groot et al., 2002).
In this study, we consider valuation of the provisioning and cultural
services of the Bangladesh Sundarbans Reserve Forest which has real
markets using Direct valuation methods. Since Forest Department,
being the custodian of the SRF, determines the revenue from different
types of forest products including tourism, the real competitive market
does not exists for the rst stage selling point, i.e. from the Forest
Department to the resource collectors, hence the economic value of
the services can only be determined from the revenue obtained for
each service, rather than the real market price which is substantially
higher than the revenue received by the Forest Department. For the
Forest Department, the revenue earned from the services would be
the economic benets only, rather the higher economic value of the
services when they enters to the local and national market which does
not bring any economic benets to the Forest Department.
Therefore, the economic value of the provisioning services includ-
ing timber, fuel wood, thatching materials, sh, crab, and honey was
estimated using the aggregate of annual revenue earned by Forest
Department from all types of provision services of the Sundarbans
over a scal year. Historical records of revenues earned from each of
the provisioning services were retrieved from the sales documents
maintained by the FD for the nancial years 20012002 to 20092010.
Total stock of different types of provisioning services such as timber,
sh, is not evaluated in this study because two reasons: one is
unavailability of realistic information on the stocks; the other reason
is that the estimated economic value of the total stock would not give
any indication how much economic benet the SRF can provide to FD
annually, whereas possible annual yield of resources would be more
important to FD to determine the potential economic benet from SRF.
Similarly, the economic value of cultural services was estimated
for tourism - the only marketable cultural service of the Sundar-
bans. Both domestic and international tourists were the sources of
tourism income from the Sundarbans. The annual revenue earned
from tourism service in a particular scal year was considered as
economic value of tourism over that year. Available records on
total number of domestic and international tourists who visited
the Sundarbans and annual revenue earned during the 20012002
to 20092010 years were collected from the Forest Department.
The original data of revenue taken in local currency (Taka) was
converted to US$ with appropriate conversion factors for corre-
sponding years of the study period, which allowed to estimate the
changes of economic value over the period.
3. Results
3.1. Economic value of provisioning services of the SRF
The Provisioning services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest
includes mainly timbers and non-timber forest products. The forest
houses a variety of economically valuable timber species such as
Sundri (Heritiera fomes), Baen (Avicennia ofcinalis), Keora (Sonneratia
apetala), Passur (Xylocarpus mekongensis), Gewa (Excoecaria agallocha).
The major non-timber forest products include fuelwood (plant species
such as Goran (Ceriops decandra), Hantal (Phoenix paludosa), Kakra
(Bruguiera gymnorrhiza)), Thatching materials (Goalpata (Nypa fruti-
cans) and Grasses (Eriochloa procera)) and shes (Bagda (Penaeus
monodon), Golda (Macrobrachiurn rosenbergii) shrimp, white sh,
mollusk, crabs). Further, minor forest products such as honey, wax,
and medicinal plants are harvested from the Sundarbans.
The estimated average annual revenue for all types of provisioning
services was around US$ 744,000 per year during nancial year 2001
2002 to 20092010. Among all products, revenue earning was highest
from timber (US$ 0.4 million), followed by sh (US$ 0.2 million),
thatching materials, fuel wood, crab and honey and wax (Fig. 2).
The amount of timber harvested was about 3567 m3 per year
during the period of 20012002 to 20092010, mainly from the seized
timbers from encroachers as well as felled trees by cyclone or other
natural calamities, as there was moratorium imposed on commercial
timber extraction. The revenue collected was US$ 0.4 million per year
over this period with a decreasing trend (Fig. 3). The value of timber
depends on the type of timber species and quality rather than total
volume of timber only. For instance, average revenue for Sundri timber
was US$ 6 per m3 whereas average revenue for Gewa timber was US$
0.48 per m3.
Honey and Wax
Crab
Provisioning services
Fuel wood
Thatching materials
Fish
Timber
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Average annual revenue in thousands US$
Fig. 2. Item-wise average annual revenue from provisioning services of the
Sundarbans (20012002 to 20092010).

1400
Percentage of change (%) in total
1200
1000
annual revenue
800
600
400
230
200
0
200 -44 -79
Timber Fuel wood Thatching
materials
Fig. 3. Change of total annual revenue from different provisioning services over a
9-year period (from 20012002 to 20092010).
Fish is the second largest product of the Sundabans. White sh,
small sh, shrimp, shrimp fry1 (Bagda2and Galda3) and Hilsa
(Tenualosa ilisha) were most commonly harvested sh items. On
average, about 4600 t of sh and 2.6 millions of Bagda fry (salt water
shrimp fry) were collected per year during the study period. About US
$ 0.2 million revenue was collected per year from sheries over the
same period, with an increasing trend of sh production and revenue
collection observed in recent years (Fig. 3).
Fuelwood is used for making charcoal, cooking food and
burning bricks. Fuel wood contributes to the total revenue
of the Sundarbans and local people depend on for their liveli-
hoods. The main fuelwood species were Goran (Ceriops decandra),
Hantal (Phoenix paludosa), and Kakra (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza).
Fuelwood collection reached 13,500 t per year and the revenue
collected from this sector was US$ 0.06 per year over the study
period (Fig. 2).
Another major provisioning product available abundantly from
the Sundarbans was thatching material. The main species used for
thatching materials were Goalpata (Nypa fruticans) and Malia grass
(Phragmites karka) which were used for light construction, boat
roong, weaving and walls of cottage or houses. An average
amount of 26,650 t of thatching material was collected per year
during the period 20012002 to 20092010. During that period
average revenue earning from thatching materials was about US$
0.06 million per year (Fig. 2), and the revenue earning was more
than doubled by that period (Fig. 3).
Average honey and wax productions were 128 and 32 t per year,
respectively for the period of 20012002 to 20092010. The average
revenues collected from honey and wax were US$ 0.011 million and
US$ 0.004 million, respectively. The production of honey and wax
and corresponding revenue was increasing slightly during the study
period (Fig. 3).
An average of 444 t of crabs was harvested per year over the
period of 20012002 to 20092010 with average annual revenue
of US$ 0.02 million. The production of crabs and corresponding
revenue increased very signicantly over the period (Fig. 3).
3.2. Economic value of cultural services of the SRF
The Sundarbans is recognized as place of cultural importance
by the local people as well as national and international commu-
nities. The Cultural services of Sundarbans includes tourism,
traditional/spiritual festive (e.g. Rush Mela,4 Banobibi5 organized
1
Fry: baby shrimp and prawn.
2
Bagda: salt water shrimp.
3
Galda: fresh water prawn.
4
Annual religious festival for Hindu communities.
5
Prayer to goddess.
Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93 e91
1365 Domestic tourists
117.10
150
International tourists
Tourist number in thousands
97.72
94.75
92.63
120
83.71
69.08
90
58.74
49.37
46.89
247
60
19
30
2.12
2.16
1.94
1.71
1.58
1.48
1.26
0.73
0.43
Fish Honey and Crab
Wax
0
Financial year (from 2001-02 to 2009-10)
Fig. 4. Number of tourists visited Sundarbans over the period of 20012002 to
20092010.
by the local Hindu community), symbol of World Heritage site,
admired as national forests in Bangladesh, education and research,
and tradition of livelihoods. The scenic beauty, river cruising,
shing, bird watching, jungle trails and wildlife watching in
Sundarbans are attracted by a large number of tourists every year
from national and international destinations. Recognizing the
signicance, UNESCO has declared three wildlife sanctuaries of
Sundarbans (East, West and South) as World Heritage Sites in
1997. Further, many education and research programmes are being
undertaken by universities and other research institutes.
The economic value of cultural services of Sundarbans, in terms
of revenue collected from tourists, was estimated to be US$ 42,000
per year during the period of 20012002 to 20092010.
On average each year 80,375 tourists visited Sundarbans, of which
98% were domestic and 2% were foreigners. The number of tourist
has been doubled over the study period (Fig. 4) and revenue
increased by 4 times in the same period. This is because of increase
of international tourist by ve times over the same period.
It indicates that there is a high potential to increase economic
benet from tourism in the Sundarbans.
4. Discussion
The study estimated the economic value of the major provi-
sioning and cultural services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest in
Bangladesh. Only revenue generated from the marketable provi-
sioning and cultural services was considered with a view of direct
economic benets to the Forest Department which is the prime
responsible agency for protecting the forest.
Since the SRF is managed as Reserve Forest, very selective
products are being harvested with revenue-permit system; poten-
tials of many marketable products remained unexplored yet.
Till now the major marketable provisioning services are timber,
sh, fuel wood, thatching materials, crab, honey and waxes.
Although moratorium was imposed on commercial timber har-
vesting since 1989, revenue from timbers (seized from pirates and
natural felling) remained highest, followed by shes (Fig. 2).
The average annual extraction of timber from Sundarbans was
about 3567 m3 during 20012002 to 20092010, which is
obviously much lower than the timber extraction at the pre-
moratorium stage (nearly 300,000 m3 in 19871988) reported in
a previous study (FAO, 1998). It indicates that the economic benet
from timber extraction could be much higher than present value,
if we could maintain sustainable production from the forest.
e92 Md.S. Uddin et al. / Ecosystem Services 5 (2013) e88e93
Fuelwood production followed the same declining trend as timber,
and generated low revenue compare to other products.
Apart from timber and fuelwood, the revenue earning from
other products such as sh, thatching materials, crabs, honey
and waxes, for which no restrictions were imposed, have been
increasing over the study period. This may be due to an increase
in number of resources collectors, no restrictions over annual
harvest of these products as well as increased market demand
(FD, 2010). Particularly, crab production and it's annual revenue
has increased sharply in recent years due to high market
price and demand for exports. Both government and NGOs are
facilitating crab fattening projects in the Sundarbans region,
where the juvenile crabs come from the Sundarbans (Chandra
et al., 2012).
Economic value of cultural services of the Sundarbans, as
measured by tourism, shows that the number of tourist and
annual revenue were increasing over the study period. This result
indicates that Sundarbans have been visited by a growing number
of tourists for recreation in recent years. However, economic value
of tourism in Sundarbans (nearly US$ 40,000 per year from whole
Sundarbans) is still less compared to other mangrove ecosystem
like Sri Lanka (US$ 93,300 for domestic and US$ 119,600 for
international tourists per square kilometers per year) (Batagoda,
2003). Promotion of ecotourism, special events and festivals in
Sundarbans can increase revenue from tourism. Tourism friendly
infrastructures are also necessary to enhance tourism in the
Sundarbans (FD, 2010). Other than tourism, worship and
educational research on the Sundarbans might be highly valued
cultural services of Sundarbans which is not determined due to
inadequate data.
Since the production of and revenue from provisioning and
cultural services are purely based on permit system without
having proper estimation of the stock and potential sustainable
yield of the resources, the economic value currently received by
Forest Department could not be justied as over or undervalued.
The results presented in this study only revealed the fact of
growing economic benets with uncertainties how long we can
have the benets; whether we would impose moratorium for
other resources after few years like what happened to timbers, or
we will continue to acquire optimum benets for next genera-
tions. This study shows the potential that the Sundarbans can
provide economic benets as it is providing today. Still sufcient
information on the sustainable yield of the forest products is
lacking that could show the future path of harnessing sustainable
optimum economic benets from the forest products of the
Sundarbans over the coming years (FD, 2010).
Other than provisioning and cultural services, the value of
regulatory services (e.g. protection from storm) could be esti-
mated, which was not done under this study due to lack
sufcient information. The protective value of the mangrove
forests is probably best evaluated by calculating the cost of
protective infrastructure to prevent storm surge that would be
needed if the forests were not there. Some studies have
estimated the value of coastal protection by mangrove ecosys-
tems in Sri Lanka and Vietnam where they found annual
protection value of (about US$ 8000 and US$ 5000 per square
kilometer, respectively) (Batagoda, 2003; Tri et al., 1998). Simi-
larly the Sundarbans mangroves might have great importance
for coastal protection of the coastal communities in Bangladesh.
In addition, new economic opportunities for carbon regulating
role of the Sundarbans could emerge by selling Carbon credit of
the forest (about 205 Mt CO2 equivalent) in the global carbon
market (FD, 2011). Furthermore, the economic value of support-
ing services (e.g. biodiversity, habitat) of the Sundarbans may be
signicant. We could not determine the value of this service of
Sundarbans due to lack of relevant data.
5. Conclusion
The Sundarbans Reserve Forest provides a wide range of
provisioning and cultural services that are similar to those in
many other mangroves around the world. The generation of
economic benet from the forest products is purely controlled
by the Forest Department through revenue-permit system,
which does not reect the market price of the products. There
is no account of setting the limit of permits that would allow
the sustainable production of services. In such context, the
economic value of the provisioning and cultural services of the
Sundarbans Reserve Forest received by the Forest Department
was increasing over the recent years, except the revenue from
timbers. The Forest Department is making economic benets
out of the ecosystem services without knowing the optimum
limits and how long they can harness the economic benets.
The economic benets can be drawn from the non-
consumptive services like tourism, carbon credit instead of
acquiring from the consumable provision services. This study
would facilitate the forest managers to conceptualize the
economic and environmental importance of the Sundarbans
ecosystem and undertake future strive towards sustainable
management of the ecosystem services. Further research on
economic valuation of the total stock and potential of all the
ecosystem services of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest as well as
optimum limits of sustainable yield of the services under
different socio-economic condition and climate change scenar-
ios would be necessary to enhance sustainable management of
the forest.
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