Indices for Measuring Forest Ecosystem Goods and Services Contribution to the Rural Community: A Tool for Informed Decisions

Forests provide immense goods and services to human beings. The utilization pattern of these goods and services varies at spatial and temporal scales to different communities reside near to the forest. Therefore, for management and conservation of forest of a region, the policies should be oriented on actual resource utilization by the dependent community. In this paper, the indices for evaluation of forestry’s ecosystem goods and services contributions are being proposed based on measurable indicators of the forest resources utilized by local community. These indices analyze the spatio-temporal heterogeneity of resource use and explore the suitability of existing resource management option and may be used for policy instruments for developmental activities and for assessing with and without Reduced Emission due to Forest Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) scenarios. These indices are being evaluated and compared at spatial scale in the hills of Dehradun, India by collecting data on forest resource utilization through questionnaire survey from 200 randomly selected households distributed in 34 villages at two altitudes. The forest contribution among the communities was found to differ with altitude, indicating the need for an altitudinal basis for the forest management regime. Therefore, these indices may be used to obtain the information about the forest’s contribution to the society at present and may facilitate future anticipated changes to adjust forest management to meet the need of society.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jepsl.v1i2.5148

Journal of Environmental Professionals Sri Lanka Vol.1(2) 2012 58-75