TY - JOUR

T1 - Governing Europe's forests for multiple ecosystem services

T2 - Opportunities, challenges, and policy options

AU - Winkel, Georg

AU - Lovrić, Marko

AU - Muys, Bart

AU - Katila, Pia

AU - Lundhede, Thomas

AU - Pecurul, Mireia

AU - Pettenella, Davide

AU - Pipart, Nathalie

AU - Plieninger, Tobias

AU - Prokofieva, Irina

AU - Parra, Constanza

AU - Pülzl, Helga

AU - Roitsch, Dennis

AU - Roux, Jeanne Lazya

AU - Thorsen, Bo Jellesmark

AU - Tyrväinen, Liisa

AU - Torralba, Mario

AU - Vacik, Harald

AU - Weiss, Gerhard

AU - Wunder, Sven

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Europe's forest provide multiple ecosystem services for societies, ranging from provisioning (e.g. wood) and regulating (e.g. climate mitigation and biodiversity) to cultural (e.g. recreation) services. In this paper, we assess the state and prospects of forest ecosystem services provision in Europe, introducing new data from the European collaborative research projects SINCERE, NOBEL and CLEARING HOUSE, and combining it with findings from the literature. We identify six challenges (1 an insufficient alignment of FES supply and demand, 2 lacking policy integration, 3 ambiguous and conflicting regulatory frameworks, 4 a lack of precise information on FES demand and provision, and innovations to align both, 5 an increasing pressure to adapt to climate change, and 6 a striking diversity constraining European level policy solutions) and three opportunities (1 increasingly heterogenous forest owner objectives potentially matching pluralistic societal demands, 2 diversifying forest enterprises levering innovations in regulating and cultural ecosystem services provision, and 3 the potential of forests to mitigate climate change). Subsequently, we introduce four distinct but complimentary policy pathways for European forest policy to better align forest ecosystem services provision and demand: 1 Better monitoring of FES supply and demand, 2 Enhanced policy integration, 3 Payments for ecosystem services, and 4 Bottom-up participation and learning among ecosystem services innovators. We conclude by emphasizing the momentum that the EU Green Deal unfolds for a future European forest policy to incentivise the provision of multiple forest ecosystem services.

AB - Europe's forest provide multiple ecosystem services for societies, ranging from provisioning (e.g. wood) and regulating (e.g. climate mitigation and biodiversity) to cultural (e.g. recreation) services. In this paper, we assess the state and prospects of forest ecosystem services provision in Europe, introducing new data from the European collaborative research projects SINCERE, NOBEL and CLEARING HOUSE, and combining it with findings from the literature. We identify six challenges (1 an insufficient alignment of FES supply and demand, 2 lacking policy integration, 3 ambiguous and conflicting regulatory frameworks, 4 a lack of precise information on FES demand and provision, and innovations to align both, 5 an increasing pressure to adapt to climate change, and 6 a striking diversity constraining European level policy solutions) and three opportunities (1 increasingly heterogenous forest owner objectives potentially matching pluralistic societal demands, 2 diversifying forest enterprises levering innovations in regulating and cultural ecosystem services provision, and 3 the potential of forests to mitigate climate change). Subsequently, we introduce four distinct but complimentary policy pathways for European forest policy to better align forest ecosystem services provision and demand: 1 Better monitoring of FES supply and demand, 2 Enhanced policy integration, 3 Payments for ecosystem services, and 4 Bottom-up participation and learning among ecosystem services innovators. We conclude by emphasizing the momentum that the EU Green Deal unfolds for a future European forest policy to incentivise the provision of multiple forest ecosystem services.

KW - EU forest policy

KW - Forest ecosystem services

KW - PES

KW - Policy integration

U2 - 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102849

DO - 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102849

M3 - Review

AN - SCOPUS:85139307405

VL - 145

JO - Forest Policy and Economics

JF - Forest Policy and Economics

SN - 1389-9341

M1 - 102849

ER -