Total Economic Value of Maasai Mau, Trans Mara and Eastern Mau ...

For the local communities living near the forest blocks, the main value of the forests ishidden in the productive potential of the land that is under the trees. To this group, thevalue of the forest can be measured by the capital value of the land in the otherintended uses. This can be captured using the present value of the annual or periodicnet returns from using the land for those other purposes, minus the cost of clearing theforest and planting the new crop. The most important crops are wheat in the southernpart of the Maasai Mau and tea growing in the other part of the forest blocks. The mainargument in the valuation using opportunity cost is that when the forests are convertedinto agricultural land, the community loses all other benefits. The decision will involvecost and benefit analysis of the alternative uses of the forests.Forests have been the main source of land for various land uses for the community andare part of way of life practised over many years. The settlements and encroachmentinto most of the three forest blocks currently taking place in most cases is for cropproduction for subsistence and cash generation. Thus the opportunity cost ofconserving the Mau Forest complex is measured realistically by the foregone conversioninto alternative land use currently undertaken in adjacent farms.The land use currently practised by farmers and companies operating in farms adjacentto the selected forest blocks is farming, mostly tea, maize and potatoes. For this studywe take tea and maize as the best alternative uses to the three forest blocks. To bring inthe forest angle we shall consider the Eucalyptus grandis that is currently theremunerative forestland use adopted by many farmers in the region. Comparative landuse studies by Cheboiwo and Langat (2008) using discounted cost–benefit analysisshowed range of performance of the three land uses:n( Bt− Ct)NPV= ∑t(1 rt= 1 + )(4)Where, NPV is the net benefit present value of the enterprise under consideration; Bt isthe benefit generated in each year in KES; Ct = Cost in each year in KES; n is the rotationof the selected crop; r is the discount rate used to bring the benefits to the current values;and t is the time series under consideration.For ease in comparison another tool equal annual equivalent is introduced as follows:EAE = NPV × annuity factor (5)where annuity factor = r (1 + r) t /(I + r) t-1 (6)50