Forest owners and managers across Europe reported that wood production provides most forest income, while cultural and regulating services such as recreation and carbon storage account for much smaller shares.
Forests provide “ecosystem services” — benefits people get from nature — including provisioning services such as timber and fuel, regulating services such as carbon storage and water flow, and cultural services such as recreation and education, the European Commission said on Thursday citing a new study.
This study in question is funded through EU Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe via the projects SINCERE, NOBEL, ForestValue2, and CLEARINGHOUSE.
The study cited in the briefing analysed 516 usable survey responses from forest owners and managers in 27 countries, alongside a Europe-wide geographic database of forest characteristics including rainfall, tree species composition, carbon storage, distance from cities and whether forests fall within Natura 2000 protected areas.
Researchers combined the survey data with a deep learning model to estimate income and profitability from different ecosystem services across mapped forest areas.
More than 80% of respondents said provisioning services made the greatest contribution to their forest income, while regulating and cultural services each provided less than 20%.
Provisioning services were also ranked as the most profitable, followed by regulating services and then cultural services.
Wood-focused and multi-service forests
Two broad management profiles were identified: wood-focused management, which tended to be coniferous and located in central, northern and north-eastern Europe, and “multiple-services” management, which tended to be in broadleaved forests in western, southern and south-eastern Europe, closer to cities and more often within Natura 2000 areas.
Regulating and cultural services made up a higher share of income and profitability in state forests than in privately owned forests, the Commission said.
Most forest owners and managers reported increased public demand over the past 20 years for cultural and regulating services, alongside less appreciation for provisioning services such as wood and hunting.
Despite that, respondents reported little or no overall increase in income from regulating or cultural services over the last 20 years.
Croatia and Serbia were reported as having the highest levels of income from regulating and cultural services, and both have tax or subsidy-based incentives linked to these services.
The study was published in "Ecosystem Services" in 2025 by Lovrić and co-authors.
