Economic valuation of areas affected by forest fires | Sustainable Forest

• Forests are responsible for environmental services, carbon sequestration, and revenue for owners.
• The forest is owned by different types of entities and usually private owners owns a small acres with low financial viability;
• Rural areas are inhabited manly by old and low income people that need the revenue from wood sales;
• Given the small size of the acres, the owners opt for the planting of fast-growing species.
• The number and the impact of wild fires as increased due to climate change and desertification of rural areas;
• Wild fires are responsible for asset, financial, biodiversity and human losses;
• The recent examples of big wild fires in Portugal showed that without a financial viable forest the small owners are not able to invest in the maintenance of the forest.

Proposed approach:

• Develop a transnational study to determine how to make the forest financial viable and with resilience to fire in terms of species and managements strategies;
• Implementation pilot projects.