Training Programme on Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services

14 Mar, 2016

A ‘Training Programme on Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services’ was jointly organised from 14-17 March, by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Deutsche Gesellschaftfur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH at Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. With the support from GIZ's CMPA project, this training was intended to expose the training faculties and researchers in various institutes and NGOs, towards the role of economics in enhancing conservation efficiency.

The event was jointly inaugurated by Dr G. S. Rawat (Dean of Wildlife Sciences, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun) and Mr. Ravindra Singh (Senior Advisor, Indo-German Biodiversity Programme – GIZ). The instructors for the training were Kim Bonine, Training Director - Conservation Strategy Fund, California and Dr. Alejandro von Bertrab, Advisor – ValuES, GIZ, Germany.

The theme of the programme was established on the backdrop created by field based research taken by ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – India Initiative (TII)’ and on the need for incorporating economics of ecosystem services approaches to address policy challenges in conservation and sustainable use.

The objective of the programme was to familiarise the participants with the basics of economic valuation of ecosystem services, through modules of ValuES project and Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF). The module of the training was designed to balance between theory of Microeconomics and its practical application in the environmental economics in real and fictitious cases. The participants valued the inputs on topics like fundamentals of economics, market forces, environmental externalities and market failures, understanding of ecosystem services, environmental valuation and overview of cost benefit analysis.

The ‘Training Programme on Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services’ was jointly organised by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Deutsche Gesellschaftfur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

The concluding session of the training programme was chaired by Dr. V. B. Mathur (Director, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun). During his address, he expressed great satisfaction from the expression drawn from the feedback provided by the participants. Dr Mathur emphasised the importance of such trainings and the need to maintain the continuity of such programmes for building capacity of trainers, to support conservation efforts.