PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 29: Protecting ecosystem services through private sector partnerships and the capital markets
Organizer(s): BM Kahn and O Loucks
Wednesday, August 10, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 511 B, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Examining trade-offs and synergisms in ecosystem goods and services: The case of coastal British Columbia.

Gergel, Sarah¹, Kozak, Robert¹, Stange, Yulia¹, Lantz, Trevor¹, ¹ Centre for Applied Conservation Research, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACT- Society depends on numerous ecosystem goods and services for survival, enjoyment, and economic well-being. While trade-offs exist among many ecosystem services, an analysis of synergisms among these services provides a useful framework for identifying potential missed opportunities and informing decision-making. Scenarios are an extremely valuable tool for societal decision-making, as well as for envisioning alternative futures. We examine a suite of plausible alternative historical scenarios that compare value-added and commodity approaches to forestry and determine their relative impact on provisioning of other ecosystem goods and services. For example, Sitka spruce is a species useful for many high-value wood products (e.g., cabinetry and sound boards) but has been traditionally used for lower-value wood products (e.g., dimension lumber). Using volumetric records of historical Sitka spruce harvests, we compare the volumes actually harvested to the volumes that would have been required to provide a similar number of jobs in value-added production. Second, we incorporate ecological heterogeneity into our scenarios (temporal and spatial) to more accurately reflect the variability in ecosystem services that landscapes provide. For example, many non-timber forest products, ranging from berry-producing shrubs to mushrooms and medicinal plants, provide a range of services and have high economic value. Forestry practices results in trade-offs and synergisms in these services as the presence, abundance, and potential economic value of many species may increase, decrease, or change in quality with different harvesting and silvicultural practices. We present a framework for examining these trade-offs and identifying win-win opportunities. Our goal is to develop and compare a suite of traditional and less-traditional economic scenarios for a tractable subset of coastal British Columbia as proof of concept.

Key words: scenario modelling, ecosystem management, valuation and ecological economics, ecosystem services