Umweltökonomische Gesamtrechnung für den Wald: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen

Abstract

Environmental and economic accounting for forests: feasibilities and limits The European Parliament and the Council of the Member States of the European Union point out the need to further develop a system of environmental accounts, including physical and monetary accounts for natural capital and ecosystem services. For the forestry sector such a system already exists. The European framework for integrated environmental and economic accounting for forests (IEEAF) consists of a series of logically ordered tables. Basically it shows the flow of wood from the forest to the different intermediate and final use purposes in a consistent manner. Supplementary, IEEAF provides tables that present production and generation of income in the forestry sector, inform about defoliation, and show the key figures on forest carbon balances. The economic key figures of IEEAF are broadly in accordance with the European system of national accounting, and hence comparable with the respective overall economic key figures. In contrast, ecological indicators are not yet appropriately developed. Hence, ecosystem services on the whole are insufficiently accounted for. Provision with wood as well as carbon sequestration are the only ecosystem services which are covered rather comprehensively. Table systems or at least appropriate indicators for other ecosystem services like water purification and fresh water supply, biodiversity or recreation in forests are missing and deserve recording in the IEEAF framework. Natural capital and its ecosystem services on the whole can hardly be meaningfully evaluated in monetary terms. Changes, though, can. For this purpose it would be sufficient to include above mentioned ecosystem services into the IEEAF in physical terms only. Monetary evaluations could then be conducted for the changes of the services between the individual years.