Economic analysis of Ghana’s Biodiversity

This page gives a brief description of the economic value associated with the biological resources existing in Ghana. The knowledge of this is serves as motivation for the conservation and sustainable use of such resources. This literature attempts to give an idea of the cost the country incurs when forests and other natural resources are lost.

Release date	27/02/2013
Contributor	Eric Okoree

Economic analysis of Ghana’s Biodiversity

In Ghana, as in many other countries, people associate biodiversity with the direct economic values that can be derived from it. To some extent, there is appreciation for its economic values that can be derived from it. To some extent, there is appreciation for its indirect use value with regards to ecological and environmental functions of watershed and catchment protection, erosion control, carbon sequestration, air pollution and soil fertility restoration by forests and trees.

In the conservation and use of biodiversity in Ghana, little premium is put on its existence values. This is the result of the growing demand of people to satisfy present socio-economic needs by exploiting resources at rates and levels that jeopardize the system’s ability to sustain these rates and levels. In addition, the entire spectrum of biodiversity values is unknown to many Ghanaians given also that the mode of value assessment is generally cumbersome, unreliable and unsophisticated. Tutu et al. (1993) conservatively estimated the annual cost of deforestation and land degradation to the Ghanaian economy at about 4% of Gross Domestic Product, approximately US $54 billion.