The conservation and sustainable use of forest resources is emerging as an issue of great national and global concern. Forest resources worldwide, and particularly in developing countries, are prone to various threats. In the past few decades, recording of forest benefits was one of
the major prioritized concerns. Proper forest resource valuation and accounting would help better understanding of the stock and flow of the forest resources and thus represent the status of forests resources not only in quantitative/qualitative terms but also in monetary terms. The article
presents two case studies to highlight the conventional system of forest resource accounting (FRA); estimate the values of various forests goods and services; and reflect on the extent of distortion in the existing system of FRA. It also presents an approach for improving the conventional
system of FRA through incorporation of unrecorded forest benefits.
Forest Resource Accounting (FRA) is an important instrument of sustainable forest management (SFM). It facilitates estimation of the economic value of tangible and intangible forest benefits and the contribution of the forestry sector to gross domestic product (GDP). This article presents
a critical review of the practice of FRA in the light of experience in India. Case studies are used as the empirical basis to propose an improved system of FRA on lines of the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting (SEEA). Also explored is the role of FRA in facilitating
the achievement of the goals of SFM. The study shows that the contribution of the forestry sector to India's economy could be significantly enhanced if the value of unrecorded forest benefits were included in the national system of accounts.
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