Integrated Assessment of Forest Ecosystem Services, Values and Trade-Offs

Context
Eco­sys­tems and bio­di­ver­si­ty are still being lost and degra­ded at an unpre­cedent rate and scale cau­sing great eco­no­mic, socie­tal and envi­ron­men­tal damage. To stop the loss of our ‘natu­ral capi­tal’ the impor­tance of its ser­vices and bene­fits should be reflec­ted struc­tu­ral­ly in deci­sion making at all levels. This work­shop helps to unders­tand bet­ter the impor­tance of asses­sing Forest Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices, its values and trade-offs.

Goals
The goals of the work­shop are to enable par­ti­ci­pants to (1) increase their unders­tan­ding of the concept of Forest Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices and Values, (2) explore the inte­gra­ted assess­ment fra­me­work and (3) apply the assess­ment tools to 8 case stu­dies to dee­pen the expe­rience and allow for in-​depth discussion.

Pro­gramme
The event is spread over two days and is divi­ded into four parts: (1) Intro­duc­tion of the inte­gra­ted assess­ment metho­do­lo­gy, (2) mea­su­ring and valuing Forest Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices (FES), (3) ana­ly­sing eco­no­mic trade-​offs bet­ween mana­ge­ment options, (4) mode­ling FES with InVEST.
Par­ti­ci­pants will work in small groups on eight concrete prac­ti­cal cases, name­ly: tim­ber pro­duc­tion, pro­tec­tion against natu­ral hazards, forest cli­mate pro­tec­tion, drin­king water fil­tra­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty conser­va­tion, health pro­mo­tion, heat miti­ga­tion and urban trees mana­ge­ment. During regis­tra­tion par­ti­ci­pants can sign up for one of these cases.

Chairs and speakers
The work­shop is orga­ni­zed and chai­red by Luis Inos­tro­za, PD Dr., Land­scape and Spa­tial Plan­ning, Ruhr Uni­ver­si­ty of Bochum (D) and Rudolf de Groot, Ex.A.Prof. at the Envi­ron­men­tal Sys­tems Ana­ly­sis Group, Wage­nin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty & Research (NL). Addi­tio­nal spea­kers include Prof. Dr. Vere­na Griess, Forest Resources Mana­ge­ment Forst­li­cher Res­sour­cen (ETH Zurich), Dr. Cle­mence Dirac (FOEN) and Dr. Roy Remme (Lei­den Univ., The Nether­lands, pre­vious­ly Stan­ford Univ, USA).

Tar­get public
The event is aimed at inter­es­ted forest pro­fes­sio­nals from science and prac­tice as well as stu­dents. The num­ber of par­ti­ci­pants is  limi­ted; ear­ly regis­tra­tion is recommended.

Lan­guage
English

Condi­tions of participation
Par­ti­ci­pa­tion is free of charge and includes 2 cof­fee breaks per day. Meals are not inclu­ded; they can be taken at the cafe­te­rias of ETH.