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Forests
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Forests as Nature-Based Solutions: Ecosystem Services, Multiple Benefits, and Trade-Offs
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Forests as Nature-Based Solutions: Ecosystem Services, Multiple Benefits, and Trade-Offs

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Economics, Policy, and Social Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2024 | Viewed by 1415

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anže Japelj

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Slovenian Forestry Institute, Večna Pot 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Interests: environmental valuation; ecosystem service mapping; governance models for natural resources; management of stakeholders
Dr. Silvija Krajter Ostoić

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Croatian Forest Research Institute, Cvjetno Naselje 41, 10450 Jastrebarsko, Croatia
Interests: perceptions; preferences; attitudes and behaviour of stakeholders; participatory approaches; cultural ecosystem services; urban forest and green space policy and governance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nature-based Solutions (NbS), as conceptualized by IUCN, are actions related to effective protection, sustainable management, and restoration efforts to recover degraded ecosystems, which in turn has benefits on human well-being and the status of biodiversity. Thus, NbS are suitable means to address various societal challenges, including climate change, biodiversity losses, decreases in productivity, water security, risks of pests and diseases, as well as challenges regarding non-sustainable materials.

NbS are closely related to ecosystem services (ES) as these solutions foster the natural capacity of ecosystems to provide ES and thus leverage and enhance ES. As such, NbS rely on natural processes and ES to address challenges rather than relying solely on artificial, engineered solutions. Forests, being one of the most preserved and relatively abundant natural ecosystems, have great potential to provide NbS by, for example, sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change, regulating microclimates, decreasing the costs of cooling/heating, providing spaces for outdoor recreation and contributing to public health, providing wood as a building material and source of energy, providing soil cover and decreasing erosion rates, etc.

However, there are several challenges related to the implementation of NbS in forestry, such as the tendency to prioritize economic outcomes as opposed to engineered solutions, the lack of awareness and understanding of the concept of NbS and the benefits they bring, policy and regulatory barriers, the professional expertise needed for implementing NbS, information/data gaps regarding the ecological effectiveness of NbS, issues related to scale and replicability, etc.

We welcome papers that investigate those NbS-related challenges either (1) in the context of the ecological restoration, conservation, or enhancement of forests’ capacity to provide ES or (2) as studies of stakeholders’ (e.g., forest owners and decision makers) perceptions, attitudes, positions towards adapting/altering forest management to enhance the supply of ES, or even (3) the preferences of the general public and businesses regarding implementing different NBS-related strategies, as they are commonly the ones that benefit from the increased provision of forest ES.

Dr. Anže Japelj
Dr. Silvija Krajter Ostoić
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nature-based solutions
  • forest ecosystem services
  • forest owners
  • trade-offs among ES
  • policy uptake of NBS
  • sustainable management
  • environmental equality
  • socio-ecological systems

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 3150 KiB  
Article
Whether the Natural Forest Logging Ban Promotes the Improvement and Realization of the Ecosystem Service Value in Northeast China: A Regression Discontinuity Design
by Xianqiao Huang, Jingye Li, Bo Cao, Yue Ren and Yukun Cao
Forests 2024, 15(7), 1203; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15071203 - 11 Jul 2024
Viewed by 465
Abstract
To protect forest land from loss and mitigate the global climate crisis, China has proposed a stringent natural forest protection plan, known as China’s natural forest logging ban (NFLB). This policy aims to halt the over-exploitation of natural forests, restore forest ecosystem functions, [...] Read more.
To protect forest land from loss and mitigate the global climate crisis, China has proposed a stringent natural forest protection plan, known as China’s natural forest logging ban (NFLB). This policy aims to halt the over-exploitation of natural forests, restore forest ecosystem functions, and promote regional green economic development. This study uses a regression discontinuity design (RDD) model to quantitatively and comprehensively assess the effectiveness of this policy in the key state-owned forest regions in Northeast China. Additionally, it analyzes the heterogeneity and structural characteristics of the policy’s effects on the internal composition of ecological and economic systems. The empirical results are as follows: (1) Ecological and economic impacts: The policy has successfully achieved its ecological objectives by significantly enhancing the quality and value of ecosystem services. However, it has also had a notable adverse impact on economic development, particularly in the timber supply sector, reducing the conversion efficiency of ecosystem service values into economic benefits. (2) Structural analysis: The logging ban effectively promoted the value of various ecosystem services, particularly enhancing regulatory and support functions, with a LATE estimate of approximately 8.47 units. The implementation of the policy caused a negative growth in the output value of supply-oriented ecological products, and the significance level was lower than 0.1. Conversely, the LATE estimates for different types of GDP indicate a negative growth in supply-type GDP due to the policy, with p < 0.1. (3) Heterogeneity: On the one hand, a simplistic and singular approach to logging prohibition may constrain the efficiency of enhancing ecosystem service values. On the other hand, although the policy disrupted the majority of traditional forest enterprise operations, business models focusing on quality and technology improvements were able to mitigate this impact. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forests as Nature-Based Solutions: Ecosystem Services, Multiple Benefits, and Trade-Offs)
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24 pages, 2889 KiB  
Article
Forest Worker Households in the NFPP: Enhancing Sustainable Livelihoods through Capital and Transformation
by Bo Yu, Bo Cao and Hongge Zhu
Forests 2024, 15(6), 936; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15060936 - 28 May 2024
Viewed by 529
Abstract
The persistent conflict between strict conservation and community welfare highlights the growing need to address sustainable livelihoods in forest protection programs. The Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) is a comprehensive forest protection program spearheaded by the Chinese government. It is designed to facilitate [...] Read more.
The persistent conflict between strict conservation and community welfare highlights the growing need to address sustainable livelihoods in forest protection programs. The Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) is a comprehensive forest protection program spearheaded by the Chinese government. It is designed to facilitate the conservation and restoration of forest ecosystems through a range of interventions, including logging ban, management, tending, and afforestation efforts. Drawing upon longitudinal micro-level household survey data spanning five consecutive years from 2017 to 2021, this research quantifies the sustainable livelihood levels of frontline participants in the NFPP by examining two dimensions: livelihood capital stock and livelihood transformation capacity. Additionally, it investigates the internal differentiation phenomenon within this cohort. The findings suggest that forest worker households engaged in tasks related to forest management, tending, and afforestation are the frontline participants in the NFPP, in contrast to management, technical, and service personnel. Moreover, these forest worker households exhibit a pattern characterized by a higher livelihood capital stock but a lower livelihood transformation capacity compared to non-forest worker households. Furthermore, within forest worker households, there is a significant group differentiation phenomenon, resulting in inter-group differentials in the sustainable livelihood levels based on geographical and seniority stratification criteria. The developers of the global forest protection program should prioritize addressing the sustainable livelihood issues of frontline participants in the program, especially the real problem of mismatches between livelihood capital stock and livelihood transformation capacity. This can be achieved through designing income incentives, stimulating consumption, and other means to enhance the relatively disadvantaged position of frontline participants while balancing the coordination and fairness of the protection program based on the aspects of both protection and development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forests as Nature-Based Solutions: Ecosystem Services, Multiple Benefits, and Trade-Offs)
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