Abstract
1.We outline the principles of the natural capital approach to decision making and apply these to the contemporary challenge of very significantly expanding woodlands as contribution to attaining net zero emissions of greenhouse gases.
2.Drawing on the case of the UK, we argue that a single focus upon carbon storage alone is likely to overlook the other ‘net zero plus’ benefits which woodlands can deliver.
3.A review of the literature considers the wide variety of potential benefits which woodlands can provide, together with costs such as foregone alternative land uses.
4.We argue that decision making must consider all of these potential benefits and costs for the right locations to be planted with the right trees.
5.The paper closes by reviewing the decision support systems necessary to incorporate this information into policy and decision making.
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2.Drawing on the case of the UK, we argue that a single focus upon carbon storage alone is likely to overlook the other ‘net zero plus’ benefits which woodlands can deliver.
3.A review of the literature considers the wide variety of potential benefits which woodlands can provide, together with costs such as foregone alternative land uses.
4.We argue that decision making must consider all of these potential benefits and costs for the right locations to be planted with the right trees.
5.The paper closes by reviewing the decision support systems necessary to incorporate this information into policy and decision making.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 271-301 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| Journal | People and Nature |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 8 May 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Apr 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgements:This paper is in part supported by the NetZeroPlus (NZ+) grant funded by UKRI-BBSRC award BB/V011588/1 and also by the Dragon Capital Chair in Biodiversity Economics. Turing-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Award “Learning Tools for Land Use Analysis and Decision Support Utilising Earth Observation, Natural Capital and Economic Data. [Corrections added on 19 May 2022, after first online publication: additional funding information has been added.]
Data Availability Statement
Supporting Information:Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of the article at the publisher’s website.
Data Availability Statement:
This is a review paper and has no original data to archive.
Access to Document
- Bateman_etal_PN_A_Review_Of_VoR
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