The relative importance of the various services

It is extremely difficult to compare the importance of the various services provided by forests. In part, this is due to the fact that there is no universally accepted common metric that can be used in such measurement. However, economists and others have tried to measure various services, economic and otherwise, using the metric of economic value. It should be stressed that non-economists often oppose the use of this metric and that the metric requires strong assumptions. Nonetheless, estimates of the economic value of various services of forests does provide one indication of their importance relative to each other and to timber production and non-timber forest products.

Recently, Costanza et al. (1997) estimated the economic value of various services of forests at the global level. These values should be considered extremely rough estimates 1) because of the assumptions involved in their calculation and 2) because they are based on global, rather than regional, evaluations. Their estimates of annual economic value for services of the forest are:

Though these estimates should be treated with caution and represent value that partly accrues to people living outside the region, they indicate the significant importance of services of forests.