Public Preferences for Forest Management and Forest Ecosystem Services in the EU

PhD defence by Andrew David Harold Stratton

Assessment Committee

Associate Professor Thomas Lundhede, IFRO, University of Copenhagen (Chairperson)
Professor Marianne Zandersen, Aarhus University
Professor Georg Winkel, University of Wageningen

Supervisors

Professor Niels Strange
Professor Jette Bredahl Jacobsen

Department

Department of Food and Resource Economics

Place

Building: Frederiksberg Campus, Room: Aud. A 1-05.01, Dyrlægevej 100, 1870 Frederiksberg

Email address to gain access to the thesis: adhs@ifro.ku.dk.
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Short description of the thesis

Forest ecosystem services (FES) are central to EU policies such as the EU Forest Strategy, Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and European Green Deal, yet questions remain about how the European public perceives and values the benefits forests provide.

This thesis examines how public preferences for FES change depending on how they are framed, including from personal versus societal perspectives, in terms of present versus future benefits, and across different spatial scales of provision. It draws on two original datasets. The first is an EU-wide survey conducted across all 27 Member States, examining the perceived importance of 19 FES. The second is a choice experiment conducted in Slovakia and Poland, examining societal preferences for changes in strict forest protection and access restrictions in the Tatra National Parks. The findings have implications for how forest policy and decision-making are designed and interpreted across Europe.