The new economy of nature:can carbon pay for nature conservation? The case of the Hong Kong Country Parks

The Country Parks of Hong Kong occupy 40%of the total landmass of Hong Kong,and consists of vast areas of secondary woodlands,scrublands,grasslands,and reservoirs.That vegetation-and the soil underneathsubtract carbon from the atmosphere,which has a market value.The aim of this paper is to estimate the value of that carbon,to assess whether that value would be sufficient to pay for the upkeep of the Country Parks,and to compare that value to the costs of alternative ways to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.To do this,we compare the land cover of 1978,1991,1997 and 2004 using remote sensing,and identify the three predominant land covers(woodlands,scrublands,grasslands) .We then estimate the amount and value of the carbon sequestered by the vegetation and soil of the Country Parks,and compare it to the budget available to the Agriculture,Fisheries and Conservation Department to run the Country Parks(HK$234 million in 2009/2010) .We extrapolate our results over 50 years,from 1978 to 2028.We conclude that by 2028 the carbon sequestered would be valued over HK$800 million,but the value of the additional carbon subtracted yearly would only cover approximately 7%of the total budget needed to run the Country Parks.We also conclude that because of the large budget allocated to the Country Parks,alternative methods of carbon sequestration-represented by the EU ETS price of carbon-are much cheaper.