Recreational ecosystem services in decision-making: The case of French forests

This poster presents experiences obtained from the assessment of recreational services from forest ecosystems in France. The objective of this research is to provide quantitative estimates for The French national assessment of ecosystems and ecosystem services (EFESE) as well as establishing a basis for assessing the impact of changes in land use and in forest management on recreational services values. The research is carried out in close interaction with end-users, i.e. The French Forest service (ONF), and The Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition (MTES). In particular, the poster discusses key challenges met in extracting relevant decision support information from extensive datasets on supply and demand for cultural services. This includes the estimation of marginal values of recreational services, taking into account the local context. Research has shown that it is possible with high-resolution data, i.e. detailed spatial information on forest ecosystem characteristics and on the population's preferences, and so-called site-selection models based on random utility models to generate spatial-detailed marginal values of the recreational services. However such data intensive models are less practically relevant in, for example, environmental assessment of projects. We develop different approaches to aggregate and present the spatial variation in marginal services provision. A second challenge has been to identify relevant indicators derived from existing GIS information on forest ecosystems which correspond to characteristics considered by recreational users directly stated in the questionnaire. We compare perceived information on forest characteristics with data from GIS as well investigating the relevant spatial scale of a forest ecosystem for assessing the recreational services. Finally, we also address the distinction between recreational services as a consumer service and as an input to the production of touristic services. We emphasize the importance of accounting for the economic value of ecosystem services as a non-market input in producing tourist services.