Urban forest values - taxonomy and case studies, postdr.

The project described is a two-year Post.Doc fellowship for Vegard Gundersen, Norwegian Forest Research Institute, including R&D cooperation and activities. The project description concludes that it is yet an open question how to define an operative taxon omy of values adapted for forest management, but that one way among others could be these groups: Intrinsic values, Instrumental values, and Constitutive values. In forestry, private goods have historically been given more attention than public goods. The terms usually used for public goods are amenity or social values. Amenity and social resources can be defined as qualities that can contribute to human appreciation of the landscape, and they are for a part demand values or instrumental values. On the ot her side, various constitutive values are pure non-utility values, including obligationality, and can only be described in non-monetary terms. It is, however, very important to have knowledge about the non-utility values in forest planning and management. Forest management is more and more focusing on ecosystem values and social or amenity values in addition to wood-production values, especially in urban and other intensively used forest areas. The aim of the study is to investigate different value taxon omies proposed for forests, and to specify, define, and suggest possible indicators to identify these values at given forest properties. It is important to know these values, firstly for developing amenity values for the public by better design, planning and management tools, and secondly for the forest owners and their organizations to "sell" amenity values to different public and private buyers. The project will establish case areas in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim, to test if the values defined and their indicators are applicable and operative. A multidisciplinary Reference Group will be established to ensure the quality of the literature review and the study?s practicability for forest management.