Forest externalities - Ecosystem Services - Non-Timber-Products

NEWFOREX meeting deals with the challenges of implementing the valuation of forest externalities

Forest externalities are those forest goods and services which are not actively marketed, but which are also valuable other people than the forest owners. Often these externalities include biodiversity, erosion protection and recreation – externalities that we know to be valuable, but the value of which is difficult to assess. This makes it also difficult to promote them and to offer the forest owners incentives to do so.

Can we contribute to the increase of societies' welfare by developing new ways to enhance the provision of such forest goods and services? This and similar questions are the focus of the NEWFOREX project (New Ways to Value and Market Forest Externalities).

In their second project meeting in Barcelona, NEWFOREX partners discussed the progress on the preparation of background information for the development of valuation questionnaires. These be applied for the valuation of main forest externalities in selected case study areas.

At this stage the NEWFOREX project focuses on the development of new methods that will enable the valuing of forest externalities and will handle the jointly produced externalities in an integrated way.

More details about the NEWFOREX project can be found at the project website

NEWFOREX project meeting was held on June 17 -18 2010 in Barcelona (Spain).

More Information:
Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, NEWFOREX project coordinator
e-mail: bjt (at) life.ku.dk

The NEWFOREX project is funded by the European Commission – FP7.