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The Multifunctional Role of Forests – Policies, Methods and Case Studies

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... Intertwined with the issue of time-profiles is the problem of identifying present values of the damage components, which implies choosing an appropriate discount rate. This choice is critical, given the several cost and welfare elements with different time-profiles (short, medium, longand sometimes perpetualterm) that have to be taken into account (Boyd, 2000;Defrancesco et al., 2008;EU Commission, 2001;Howe, 1990;Ofiara, 2002). The setting of an appropriate social discount rate has long been debated in the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) literature. ...
... The theoretical framework of reference for the monetary evaluation in NRDA lies in individuals' utility theory (Jones and Pease, 1997;Flores and Thacher, 2002;Defrancesco et al., 2008) and looks at environmental damage as an event diminishing the welfare of the affected individuals. Welfare losses can be assessed through observation of changes in the expenditure function (Nicholson, 1995) and are at least equal to the costs that society is willing to pay in order to stop the damage, mitigate its effect, restore the resource or substitute the environmental goods and services lost because of the injury (World Bank, 1998). ...
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The paper proposes a ‘component-based’ approach to guide the choice of the social discount rate in natural resources damage assessment, where time and discounting are key features. It is a multi-rate discounting scheme, which draws on concepts from dual-rate and time-declining approaches. Each damage component is discounted at a component-specific constant rate, related to its time-trajectory. Assuming a normatively defined declining schedule of rates as a starting reference, components with longer time profiles – generally represented by welfare losses – are discounted at lower rates than short-term damage components — mainly remedial costs. The rationale behind this choice is that the longer the duration of the damage component, the higher the related nonincident specific uncertainty on the resource values and the more relevant the equity issues. When estimating the total damage, the resulting implicit average discount rate depends on the duration of each component and its relative relevance in the total damage in each moment. From an operational point of view, anchoring the rates to government prescriptions would support the robustness of the damage estimates in a court of law, whereas the dual-based environmental discount rate is based on ad-hoc assumptions that are more difficult to justify.
... Many forest governance regimes have been, or are currently, shifting to multifunctional management mechanisms (La Notte, 2008), aimed at improving the applicability of one function-sided management strategies in the presence of other functions in the forestry sector. With our analysis, particular attention is given to the role of management of infrastructures in enabling the development of forest functions. ...
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Abstract Many forest resource systems depend heavily on shared and coupled infrastructures in applying their management strategies. Addressing a question of sustainability for relevant contemporary social‐ecological systems (SES) can be tackled by understanding how these shared infrastructures mediate the interaction between human and ecological environment. Shared infrastructures, which are mainly composed of roads (accessibility utilities), highlight the relation between the performance of ecosystem services and the multifunctional use of the forest. However, dilemmas associated with road provision pose some problems when applied in a forest multifunctional management context, because roads potentially diminish or enhance forest functions in a complex way. In this context, maintaining, fostering, and improving multifunctional management where the development of an ecosystem function can affect the performance of others is challenging. We propose to develop a mathematical model based on a recent study that links multifunctional forest management to the multifunctionality of forest roads by using the SES and robustness frameworks. With this model, we analyze the evolution of the forest system and three key forest functions (wood production, tourism, and nature conservation) when impacted by decisions of road provision. We then examine how governance provision strategies can affect the performance of functions and how these strategies can potentially foster forest multifunctionality. This approach allows us to derive conditions of sustainability in which decisions of shared infrastructure provisions can play an important role in the functionalities and performance of the forest.
... Today forests must be managed in a much more interdependent and complex context, which requires a partnership process among all major actors and beneficiaries [Schmithüsen 2008]. For this to happen, it is essential that forest policies recognize the diversity of interests related to forest conservation and utilization as well as the need to involve major interest groups in forest management decisions through consultations in which they can express their expectations and their role in sustainable forest management [La Notte 2008]. This calls to attention the importance of soft infrastructures and their role in sustainability on the multi-functionality level. ...
Thesis
The usefulness of forests is spread from their exploitation for timber, tourism, and other functions to maintenance of wildlife, ecological balance, and prevention of soil erosion. In achieving these goals, the essential factor is proper forest management. However, with the increasingly perceived idea that forests are characterized by complex interactions related to biological and social aspects, forest management is facing a challenge, which consists in integrating interrelations between ecological and social systems. While sustainable forest management is originally seen as a constant yield of wood supply, modern ideas of sustainability are broader in scope, embracing all goods and services of the forest. Increasingly, forests are being managed as multi-functional ecosystems. In this vein, forests are progressively seen as complex social-ecological systems (SESs), requiring adaptive and multi-functional management. In this Ph.D. thesis, we consider that the question of management application can be tackled by understanding how shared infrastructures mediate the interaction between human and ecological environment. In particular, for sustainable and multi-functional forest management, the relation between the capacity for production as well as multi-functional use is highlighted with the concept of forest’s shared infrastructures that are mainly composed of roads (accessibility utilities). However, dilemmas associated with their provision pose some problems when it is applied in a context of different forest functions with conflicting objectives. Therefore, to fully understand and integrate the role of infrastructure and their governance into ecosystem science, we base our research on three parts. We first combine the use of Ostrom’s SES framework and Anderies’ robustness framework and apply it to a specific case study (Quatre-Montagne forest, Vercors, France) to highlight how forestry institutions affect forest ecosystem, its functions, and its social arrangements. With this, we link the concept of multi-functional forest management to the multi-functionality of infrastructures. We then develop a mathematical model, based on the first partition, which analyzes the evolution of the forest system and its functions when impacted by decisions of infrastructure provision. We highlight the role of governance calling to attention their role in fostering multi-functional forest management. Finally, we apply mathematical tools such as viability theory to identify management techniques and approaches that define a first step in characterizing adaptive managements for safe operating spaces in multi-functional forests.
... The analysis of 'high' priority (HP) objectives identified in 1995-2003 applications for grants submitted across different regions in the UK has led to the findings relating respectively to the number of HP objectives per application and their relative rankings (Nijnik et al., 2005). On the first, the average number of HP objectives per application was 3, with a slight increase from 2.8 in 1995 to 3.2 in 2002. ...
... The analysis of 'high' priority (HP) objectives identified in 1995-2003 applications for grants submitted across different regions in the UK has led to the findings relating respectively to the number of HP objectives per application and their relative rankings (Nijnik et al., 2005). On the first, the average number of HP objectives per application was 3, with a slight increase from 2.8 in 1995 to 3.2 in 2002. ...
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