Co-ordinator: Per Gundersen

The environmental research within forest ecosystems have had a major focus on the impact of pressures such as air pollution or the impact of substantial forest operations such as clear-cut. The Helsinki process and the concept of SFM has turned the focus also toward research on the environmental benefits, which the society now recognise and demand form the forest sector, and which may become a future source of income to forest owners.

The broad role of SFM can be explained by the figure:

Forest ecosystems provide many deliverables or benefits to society. The most obvious one is wood for the forest industry. Other benefits are berries, hunting, recreation etc. More recently recognised benefits are environmental services such as carbon sequestration, water protection and biodiversity, which are without an immediate market value (Figure, right side). On the other hand, there are pressures (e.g. climate change, air pollution, exploitation, and costs) on the ecosystem that may hamper the wood production or other benefits (Figure, left side). Forest management has the potential to reduce or avoid pressures and optimise environmental services provided that the mechanisms behind are known. Ideally, this knowledge will enable that management can be tuned to provide valuable wood products and at the same time sustain or restore environmental services at reduced external pressures.