Projects
Zambia
On this page you will find information regarding the project you selected. A summary of the project proposal can be found in the publications section at the bottom of the page.
Description
| Title: | Poverty-environment relationships in the Copperbelt area of Zambia: strategies for securing poverty alleviation and conservation of natural resources |
| Themes | Water, Forest, Agriculture |
| Methods | Valuation and CBA, Spatial Analysis, Regression Analysis, Policy Instruments |
General Information
The main objective of the project is to propose policy changes that prevent further environmental degradation in the Copperbelt region and allow the local population to improve living standards. The study will expand our knowledge on the values of Zambia’s resource wealth by quantifying the reliance of rural communities on natural resources. The research will extensively focus on non-consumptive or indirect use values of Copperbelt’s forestry. More specifically, the indirect and off-site environmental services of the forest dwellers in terms of watershed protection, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation will be quantified and valued. Our estimates, generated in the economic valuation and willingness to pay activities, will be processed and used in the development of appropriate payment schemes for environmental services. Furthermore, a second component of the analysis will focus on assessing the potential hazards of woodland-related economic dependence. Zambia’s disappointing economic performance over the last four decades is attributed to a large extent to the immense resource dependence of the economy (mining) and lack of diversification. In case resource curse incidences in the Copperbelt are detected (i.e. the growth-contracting impact of resource dependence), the causes of the phenomenon will be disentangled and the promotion of alternative income generating activities away from economically nonviable resource extraction will be proposed.
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