The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure

The paper finds that securing community forest tenure in Brazil and Guatemala is a low-cost, high-benefit investment where economic benefits outweigh the costs, making it a cost-effective measure for climate-change mitigation compared to other options.

• Benefit-cost analyses of Brazil's Indigenous Territories and community concessions in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve indicate that securing community forest tenure is a high-benefit, low-cost investment providing advantages to local communities, national governments, and global society.
• Investing in strong community forest tenure security is suggested to be a cost-effective strategy for climate-change mitigation when compared to alternative mitigation measures.
• While data limitations hindered a complete accounting, the analysis shows that the economic benefits of securing community forest tenure in the studied areas outweigh the associated costs, which include legislation, demarcation, registration, monitoring, protection, and opportunity costs.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure. https://www.wri.org/research/economic-costs-and-benefits-securing-community-forest-tenure

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/economic-costs-and-benefits-securing-community-forest-tenure.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure |url=https://www.wri.org/research/economic-costs-and-benefits-securing-community-forest-tenure |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendeconomic, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/economic-costs-and-benefits-securing-community-forest-tenure}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }