Possibilities of commercialization of carbon credits of the dry forest of the province of Loja, Ecuador

Abstract

The dry forests of the province of Loja are important ecosystems because of their biological diver-sity, but they support the selective extraction of wood, use conversion for agriculture, overgrazing of goats and are scarcely valued by the local population. They have been studied floristically, but scarcely the productive and economic part. For the preparation of the business plan, the data of the economic valuation of the environmental service carbon capture of the woody component of the forest were used, indicating that it is the reservoir of 118,44 tCO2e / ha, considering a pilot phase of 50 000 hectares of dry forest (Mangahurco), with a percentage of uncertainty of 40 %, means 71,06 tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e / ha) giving a total of 3 553 200 certificates issued to negotiate, at a reference price of $ 5, which gives an economic value for the ecosystem service of $ 1 776 600; in addition, the results of the perception of authorities and local population, the SWOT of the communities; estimation of supply and demand for carbon certificates (VER). The business plan to market the VERs will be for the voluntary markets, this will allow the cantonal GADs (Decen-tralized Autonomous Governments), the Dry Forest Commonwealth and the communities to have the economic resources that allow the execution of productive projects for the benefit of the local population, for the improvement of the socioeconomic conditions of the local population, through the generation of economic alternatives and the conservation of the dry forest.