Forests in the science of ecosystem services

Like three centuries ago, deforestation and forest degradation has persistently kept its position as a major concern in the world of forests, although during the past 100-150 years mostly outside Europe, and most recently also at a somewhat slower rate (FAO 2012). The ever growing research evidence on the negative consequences of deforestation during the past decades has supported and promoted international and national actions and programs in their attempts to turn the tide of forest losses. In

24 this front, research on ecosystem services of forests has become an important part, along its basic task to understand more comprehensively the relationships and interactions between people, forests, and other ecosystems. In fact, the science of ecosystem services plays nowadays a vital role in identifying unknown, poorly understood or underestimated functions and benefits of forests (and of other ecosystems), which are still in danger to be lost in the prevalence of deforestation and environmental degradation - or to be neglected due to the lack of knowledge.

As it has been implicitly shown, there are old and new research related to ecosystem services if the demarcation line is drawn according to the explicit use of the ecosystem service concept and the framework. Internationally, the “birth” of this concept and framework is related to the developments in ecological sciences and ecological economics. De Groot (1992) and de Groot et al. (2002) developed detailed analysis on ecosystem functions and first classification on ecosystems services, including those of forests. Some other pioneering work, in particular those of Costanza et al. (1997) and Daily (1997) brought the concept already more widespread in the scientific community and beyond, before the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) made it known all over the world.

As forests compose the largest terrestrial ecosystems and the statistics and knowledge on forest resources and major forest products are well developed compared to many other ecosystems, it has been natural that forests have been an important field in the investigations on ecosystem goods and services both from an ecological and economic perspectives. For example, Costanza et al. (1997) in their ambitious assessment developed global economic values for 17 forest ecosystem services, separately also for tropical and temperate/boreal forests. Average annual values were much higher for tropical than temperate/boreal forests.

Taken the multiplicity of forest benefits and values it is no wonder that the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) paid a lot of attention to the unique richness of forest ecosystem

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goods and services, which is emphasized by the scale: forests include two thirds of the world terrestrial biomass.

Among the many findings of MA (2005) were that forest and mountain ecosystems are associated with the largest amounts of fresh water - 57% and 28% of the total runoff, respectively.

These systems provide renewable water supplies to at least 4 billion people, or two thirds of the global population (MA 2005).

It also demonstrated that boreal forests were least threatened among the 18 major terrestrial biomes.

The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity-study (TEEB 2010) used forests as a model case in a tiered approach for valuation and based its survey on economic evaluation methods of ecosystem services largely on research on forests and wetlands, which had been most often studied from that point of view.

The UK NEA (2011) has probably been the most widely cited national assessment of ecosystem services, which has also furthered methodological and conceptual discussion beyond the national borders (e.g. Haines-Young et al. 2012, Haines-Young and Potschin 2013, Kettunen et al. 2012, Saastamoinen et al.

2013). The specific chapter on “Woodlands” (Quine et al. 2011) deals with 13 major groups of ecosystem services with numerous examples of goods and benefits in the UK. For example, one of the regulating service groups ‘Detoxification and Purification’ is divided into ‘Water quality’, ‘Soil quality’,

‘Air quality’ and ‘Noise reduction’ with detailed examples in each group. Among the findings of the study is that timber production is an important provisioning service of woodlands but also non-timber products matter, specifically the contribution of game shooting was given. However, the social value of net carbon sequestration by UK woodlands was assessed to be at least double the market value of wood production per hectare. The woodlands of the UK are also highly valued by people for social and cultural services (Quine et al. 2011; in UK NEA 2011). The maritime influence of climate has led to cool temperate and boreal native forest types, even though the latter are now rare (Quine et al. 2011).

26 Niu et al. (2012) is an example of the combined national and sub-national economic assessment of forest ecosystem services in a large country (China) where the focus has been in maintenance and regulation services, water conservation alone making 40% of the total value. Barton et al. (2011) points the need of the valuation of ecosystem services from the Nordic watersheds.

So far boreal forests have not been very much present explicitly under the ecosystem service frames, although there otherwise has been long and abundant literature around boreal forests and their benefits. A recent Nordic survey (Kettunen et al. 2012) makes an exception. It surveys ecosystem goods and services of all terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the Nordic countries, and therefore gives quite a lot attention to forests as well (some additional featuring is found in chapter 1.7).

Ninan and Inoue (2013) reviewed over 40 studies (between 1989 and 2010), which had a focus on the valuation of intangible (non-provisioning) forest ecosystem services, such as water and soil conservation and carbon sequestration, which are more difficult to estimate. They primarily sought studies assessing multiple rather than single forest functions. Only three studies were found from the boreal forests, two from Finland and one from Sweden⁸. One of the conclusions was that four ecosystem services (watershed protection/hydrological services, soil conservation, carbon sequestration, and recreation) have received considerable attention, whereas services such as nutrient cycling, pollination, and environmental purification, have received little attention.

One may conclude that so far boreal forests have not got enough attention in the analyses using the framework of ecosystem services if taken into account the significant role of forests compared to other ecosystems in the countries locating in the boreal zone or considering the huge area boreal forests occupy.

8 Of course, these kind of international meta-surveys most often dismiss studies that are not published in English or not easily available in web.

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1.8 FOREST ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN RECENT FINNISH