Forest resource accounting for improved national income accounts of Malawi

This study contributes towards the development of Malawi’s first integrated economic and natural resource accounts by compiling forest accounts and integrating them into the national income accounts. The forest accounts have been constructed for a ten-year period from 1990 to 2000 using the United Nation’s Satellite System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts framework.

Results from the study reveal:

• a decline in forest cover between 1990 and 2000 of 707,100 hectares representing a 2.4 percent annual decline rate, suggesting that under this period of study, there was great pressure on forestland
• that the forest asset accounts for volume of standing timber show an increase in biomass from 240,993 thousand cubic metres in 1990 to 282,858.1 thousand cubic metres in 2000, representing a 17 percent increase in biomass.

The authors recommend that there is a need:

• for construction of accounts on value of forestland and accounts for forest health
• for construction of accounts for other forest environmental services apart from carbon storage
• to expand the accounts by constructing other necessary tables in the compilation of forest accounts.
  

This study demonstrates the usefulness of natural resource accounts and has helped to build capacity and awareness among the relevant stakeholders in Malawi thereby promoting the implementation of environmental accounts in the country.