“forest Ecosystem Services:

1. Forests (natural but also human-made or modified) are among the most important providers of ecosystem services for the whole world. 2. Based on scientific evidence, it is certain that: (a) Ecosystem services are essential to the survival of human beings. (b) Forest ecosystems operate and provide services on such a grand scale and in such intricate and little-explored ways that most cannot effectively be replaced by technology. (c) Human activities are already impairing the flow of ecosystem services from the forests on a large scale. (d) If current trends continue, human activities will dramatically alter a large share of the Earth's remaining natural forest ecosystems within a few decades, especially in the tropics. One can also be fairly confident that: (a) Many of the human activities that modify or destroy natural forest ecosystems may cause deterioration of ecological services. The impact on production systems and human welfare may potentially be very high, but will probably only be fully recognised when these losses have already occurred. (b) The functioning of many forest ecosystems could be restored if appropriate actions were taken in time. 3. Regarding economic valuation, we state that it can be a useful instrument but not a solution per se: (a) We should not expect that the fact that something is vitally important will automatically ensure its price is high-as shown by the classical example of drinking water provided by conserving forests (cheap, essential for life) versus diamonds (expensive, but we can very well live without them). (b) Economics can only value the services of the earth's life-support systems (such as water, food, etc. provided by forests) by evaluating the value of a small ("marginal") change in their availability. Marginal approaches may be inappropriate when services are linked to thresholds of forests quantity and quality, the exact size and nature of which are not fully known. Economic valuation of forests can thus be a useful tool for illuminating the net benefits and incentives for different levels of stakeholders, but it can seldom genuinely determine whether forest ii conservation is "optimal" or not. We conserve much that we do not value, and do not conserve much that we value. (c) To conserve systems we must give their owners incentives to do so. We must make conservation more attractive than any other uses. In particular, conserving forests must be more attractive than the agricultural alternatives, i.e. more attractive than clearing …