Economic Tools for the Conservation of Tropical Ecosystems

The main goals of this course were (i) to give ICMBio analists familiarity with the main concepts of economics and how these concepts apply to conservation of the environment and natural resources; and (ii) to teach them the basics of designing and analyzing the financial feasibility of tourism concessions in protected areas using a financial model developed by CSF (CONCESS 1.0). At the end of the course, CSF supported participants in structuring ideas on how to use the tool to analyze real concessions in Brazilian federal protected areas. The course presented the fundamental concepts of microeconomics, which deal with market theory, and then moved on to the area of environmental valuation and environmental policy. The course included a large module on cost-benefit analysis, during which participants focused on the financial analysis of park concessions. After the course CSF coordinated several analysis of park concessions with the participation of course participants.

i. Microeconomics (16 hours)
ii. Environmental Economics and Policy (24 hours)
iii. Natural Resources Economics (8 hours)
iv. Cost-Benefit Analysis (28 hours)
v. Experimental Economics (10 hours)
vi. Case Studies (6 hours)
vii. Project Planning Workshop (8 hours)