The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. Exploring diverse case studies from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the volume discusses the impact that economic development and, recently, COVID-19 has had on the environment, ecology, and economy of these regions. It analyses nature conservation policies aimed at minimizing ecological damage arising from economic development and discusses the policy objectives of sustainable development. It also highlights the significant role that environmental economics networks have played in capacity building, framing of policies using ecological economics tools, and developing a local leadership trained in addressing local sustainability issues. An important contribution to the study of environmental economics of the Global South, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of economics, environment, development studies, development economics, environmental policies, and South Asia studies. It will also be useful for policymakers and NGOs working in this field.

The substantial and growing interest in the monetary valuation of preferences for environmental improvement, and against environmental damage, has prompted a demand for case studies illustrating methodologies and applications of valuation techniques. In this book, the first of two volumes, the authors provide detailed case studies of valuation techniques that have been used in developing countries. They demonstrate that valuation works and that it can yield significant insights into policy-relevant issues regarding conservation and economic development. The authors address a whole range of environmental issues under the broad themes of water and air quality, biological diversity and forest functions. The economic approaches covered include contingent valuation, hedonic property prices, travel cost methodologies and benefits transfer. They also go on to look at the idea of extending national accounts to reflect changes in environmental assets. Examples of the varied and interesting case studies include valuing improvements to sanitation in Malaysia, the value of visits to game parks in South Africa and tropical forest values in Mexico. They highlight how valuation techniques can be applied, often with limited resources, to critical development issues. Academics and practitioners of environmental economics will draw great value from this unique and original work, as will the many multilateral and bilateral aid agencies. The book will also prove a valuable addition to graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental economics where there is a need for case material.

Publisher description

First published in the Planning and Public Policy journal of the Research Institute for Applied Economics (IPEA) in Rio de Janeiro, this collection of papers was written by economists in Brazil, the US, the UK, and The Netherlands. Individual topics include the use of the environmental Kuznets curve in linking environment, growth, and welfare issues; the relationship between international trade and environmental policy and the use of perverse subsidies; a risk analysis perspective of the statistical value of lives in setting environmental costs to determine health benefits; deforestation in Brazil; and climate change effects on agriculture. c. Book News Inc.

This outstanding new collection surveys the relationship between the environment and development, and highlights some of the tensions that are implicit in the notion of sustainable development. Environmental Economics and Development is organized into six sections: general aspects; resource utilization and management; valuation and accounting of environmental change; environmental policy instruments; adjustment, trade and the environment; and distributional issues. These areas include general features of environment-development interfaces, operational valuation and accounting methods and economic approaches to environmental policy instruments in developing countries and in the international context.