European Forest Recreation And Tourism

In an increasingly urbanised world more and more people are turning to our forests and woodland for recreation and tourism. Based on a study of forest recreation from across Europe, the editors bring together the expertise of more than 80 leading professionals and academics to provide a clear and concise guide to best practice.

Here is, for the first time, a Europe-wide overview of the state of recreation and nature tourism in forests. It describes the current situation and conflicts in the different regions of Europe and provides solutions illustrated by good practice examples.

Forest related social values such as recreation values are growing in importance in North European countries. Our urbanized societies need social services from forests and other nature areas. One of the key ecosystem services is the recreation environment provided by forests. Possibilities to enhance commercial recreational use of forests has been recognized, particularly among private forest owners, who have new opportunities for new types of forest-related entrepreneurship. This report provides a review of social indicators in forestry, particularly concerning nature-based recreation and tourism in North European countries. The common interest among scientists and other experts was to discuss how to develop social indicators and to monitor changes to social benefits in forestry and forest use. In all countries, there is a challenge to develop monitoring systems to produce inventory data for statistics that are required in a way that provid es comparable social indicators. It is timely to enhance standardization and harmonization of social indicators for monitoring and management of sustainable forestry and forest use, and for sustainable nature-based recreation and tourism.

Abstract: Forest related social values such as recreation values are growing in importance in North European countries. Our urbanized societies need social services from forests and other nature areas. One of the key ecosystem services is the recreation environment provided by forests. Possibilities to enhance commercial recreational use of forests has been recognized, particularly among private forest owners, who have new opportunities for new types of forest-related entrepreneurship. This report provides a review of social indicators in forestry, particularly concerning nature-based recreation and tourism in North European countries. The common interest among scientists and other experts was to discuss how to develop social indicators and to monitor changes to social benefits in forestry and forest use. In all countries, there is a challenge to develop monitoring systems to produce inventory data for statistics that are required in a way that provid es comparable social indicators. It is timely to enhance standardization and harmonization of social indicators for monitoring and management of sustainable forestry and forest use, and for sustainable nature-based recreation and tourism

A Nordic Workshop on “Ecosystem Services in Forests – how to assess and value them” was held in Oslo Thursday the 13th of September 2012. During the day, 13 presentations were made, and altogether 41 participants had the opportunity to discuss the way forward and to formulate issues and research fields as recommendations to the Nordic Council of Ministers. This report presents a synthesis of the presentations and provides a brief summary of issues that were raised in the discussions. The workshop addressed both current knowledge of services as well as challenges and possibilities related to assessment and valuation, and challenged participants to formulate new and important issues based on their respective fields of expertise.

Annotation. The demand for ecotourism and outdoor recreation is increasing, and the pressures on land use are becoming more obvious. A large part of the experience of ecotourism and recreational landscape depends on the maintenance of forested land. Effective management of tourism and recreation in forests can provide extra income to help offset the costs of sustainable timber production and encourage biodiversity conservation.This multi-author book considers the compatibility between tourism, forestry and conservation, the management of natural resources and the involvement of stakeholders and the community. Issues are presented through case studies from a range of countries and topics covered include National Parks, peri-urban forestry and wilderness management, as well as practitioner-oriented contributions.