Valuing Ecosystem Services: Timber in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania

The focus of this internship is on gathering data on: timber species names, yields (actual or potential), yield curves, production costs (cutting/felling etc), commercial uses, and market prices, from existing databases, government reports and other available literature. A key goal of this work would be to put this information within a spatial context. An ideal output would be a map of timber species extraction and uses with embedded market prices as the timber goes from the forests to local or commercial uses. Through the Natural Capital (NatCap) network we have many timber species spatially referenced in eastern Tanzania. Incorporating information on market values and commercial uses would greatly enhance the next phase of this module, ground truthing and modeling economic value. A further aspect of this work would be researching to what extent timber species being used in TZ are substitutable and on what scale (e.g. can locals substitute species among uses; what happens to TZ production if the global timber market changes?)

Preferred experience: ArcGIS, some knowledge of forest ecosystems

Stipend: unpaid

Due date for CV and cover letter: April 1, 2008

Contact: Neil Burgess (Neil.Burgess@wwfus.org)