Valuation of Ecosystem Services in the Kailash Sacred Landscape; ICIMOD Research Report 2017/2.

Using behavioral economic theory and statistical methods, this study estimates the use value of ecosystem services that the households living in the three watersheds and visitors to the Patal Bhuwaneshwar Cave Temple of the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) area derive from the sites under consideration. The selected watersheds (Hat-Kalika and Chandak-Aunla Ghat of India and Gwallek Kedar of Nepal) are the pilot sites of the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) of the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal and India. The present study mainly focuses on estimating the value of the cultural services and the water provisioning services of the forest ecosystem along with assessing a possibility of designing an incentive payment for an ecosystem services (IPES) scheme for provisioning drinking water to one of the pilot sites. We interviewed a total of 1,418 respondents for the study, making it inclusive where women’s share is about 50% of the respondents.