The importance of natural foresteco

The importance of natural forest
ecosystems to human well-being cannot
be overstated. Forests provide raw materi-
als for food, fuel and shelter. In forests,
ecosystem components such as micro-
organisms, soils and vegetative cover inter-
act to purify air and water, regulate the
climate and recycle nutrients and wastes.
Without these and many other ecosystem
goods and services, life as we know it
would not be possible.
When we make decisions to alter natur-
al forest ecosystems, we often give little
thought to the consequences that change
may have on forest ecosystem services or
to the ultimate cost of losing those ser-
vices. This oversight stems from our
incomplete knowledge about how changes
in ecosystems affect the level of services
that the systems provide and our inade-
quate understanding of the roles played
by seemingly trivial ecosystem compo-
nents.
Perhaps the most significant factor is
that few ecosystem services have clearly
established monetary values. And this can
have a strong impact, considering that
many decisions about resource use are
made by comparing benefits and costs.
The decision to log a forest tract, for
example, should be based on a compari-
son of the expected monetary value of
the timber and the costs associated with
the ecosystem goods and services foregone
as a result of logging. Any ecosystem
goods and services that do not have mon-
etary values are generally not accounted
for in the decision calculus. Neither is the
fact that the benefits of many resource
use decisions are usually enjoyed by small,
fairly cohesive groups of people or the
current generation, while the costs of
foregone ecosystem goods and services are
borne by larger, more dispersed groups or
future generations.