Forest ECovalue

Alpine forests (AF) play a key role for climate change mitigation and resilience; they offer multiple ecosystem services (ES) and environmental/social benefits (e.g. CO2 absorption, air pollution reduction, increase of biodiversity, resilience to natural risks). However, they are threatened by abandonment, climate change and territorial degradation that progressively lead to a pauperization of natural resources and decrease in ES provision. AF maintenance costs are high, and public funds and traditional wood value chains cannot cover them: economic valuation and payment schemes for ES are challenges widely debated, but only occasionally successfully applied.

The project aims to turn this challenge into an opportunity, by developing innovative sustainable winwin business models for forest management and maintenance, new bio-based value chains and ES markets, involving different sectors, public and private actors and citizens. The project is based on the acknowledgment that restoring and maintaining healthy forests can generate value for the benefit of the whole alpine region, as well as business and green job opportunities for the alpine communities. 

The project focuses on a subset of forest ES (FES) from the following categories: provisioning (e.g. biomass, raw materials, chemicals), regulation (e.g. biodiversity, natural risk reduction, CO2 absorption), cultural (e.g. recreation, habitat experience, health), and will:

• Map and analyze AF delivery capacity of ES
• Identify and estimate the economic potential, define business models and FES markets frameworks
• Test the models/tools in pilot living labs involving local players; compare results at transnational level, identify obstacles and facilitating factors
• Analyze the need for innovative policies to foster and facilitate AF maintenance, ES markets and new value chains
• Elaborate refined transferable tools/models and policy proposals, as to enable new markets and value chains and ensure the expected ES

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