Valuing Forest Biodiversity

Year: 2026

eftec team: Russell Drummond, Benjamin Hentschel, Allan Provins, Boris Babic, Sophie Neupauer, Duncan Royle

Partners: Dr Daniel Maynard (University College London), Dr Silvia Ferrini (University of East Anglia), Alex Brearly (Strutt and Parker), Sian Kerr (Watermelon Research)

David Adley (Calico), Dorian Amoah (Calico), Jonathan Porter (Countryscape), Matthew Brown (Countryscape)

Acknowledgements: Fjolla Morina and Naomi Mervin (Forestry Commission)

Service Area: Economic valuation

Location: England

Full report: Value of Forest Biodiversity

The challenge

England, Wales, and Scotland currently have targets to establish and better manage woodlands to achieve a level of forest cover not seen in the UK for centuries (for England, going back at least as far as the Domesday Book). Across the world, forests are widely recognised as having a major role in adapting to and mitigating climate change.

Policymakers, landowners and managers face the difficult task of creating and managing forests that deliver for nature, people and the economy. Balancing this task with other land uses and investments requires understanding, measuring, and valuing all the benefits of forests. Having a single number for the economic value of forests (e.g. £ per ha per country), as argued in some accounting and reporting spaces, would make this task seemingly easier but potentially lead to wrong decisions for siting, composition and management of forests.

So, how can we embrace the complexity and still have economic value evidence that can support decision makers, when no two woodlands are the same?

A solution

Valuing Forest Biodiversity demonstrates how carefully designed stated preference research can generate robust estimates of economic value that account for context and the nuance of woodlands. eftec, along with UCL, University of East Anglia, Countryscape, Strutt and Parker, and Watermelon Research, developed a survey that included location, magnitude of change, and a “scale” of forest biodiversity as pictured above. The scale shows what diversity could look like, how it is experienced by people and what it means for the resilience of forests.

Almost 2,400 respondents then made choices using this information over the future of woodlands in the UK. Their choices were aggregated to estimate the economic values of different levels of forest biodiversity. Results show that:

Households in Great Britain place significant value on increasing forest cover and biodiversity.
The values vary by location, proximity to woodlands, biodiversity quality and other woodland characteristics. For example, households value woodlands both nationally and locally, but generally prefer new or improved woodlands closer to home.
Interactions with nature are a critical motivation for value, but stewardship for our communities, future generations, and nature itself (so called altruism, bequest, and existence values) are also important motivators.
Most interestingly, respondents’ preferences were aligned to those of experts – they place greater value on biodiverse woodlands than on uniform, single-species plantations.

The report (link above) then combines these insights into policy relevant economic evidence and example applications that demonstrate how context on the forest biodiversity achieved and where all matter to how those actions benefit people.

Economic valuation – making it possible to go beyond numbers

From Russell Drummond, Principal Consultant at eftec and the project manager for this work:

This write up has been an opportunity to reflect on what this project means to me. I come from a part of the world that is known for its forests; my childhood was spent surrounded by Douglas firs 100s of feet tall and evenings spent watching birds and squirrels scampering over a sentinel oak that pre-dates the house by several decades. Despite this familiarity with the woods, my visits to true ancient woodlands, which make of a tiny percentage of woodlands in Europe and North America (where they are called “old growth” or “virgin forest”) have left me in awe. The largest trees tower overhead and the space beneath them is home to a huge variety of smaller trees, shrubs, ferns, and animals. Bird song fills the quiet space, as they flit in and out of dappling spectrum of greens, yellows, and sky blues. Many naturalists and ecologists write about their own experiences much more poetically than I ever will, but these personal experiences have given me an appreciation for the subtleties and multitudes contained in the natural world, and the value that unique places have in inspiring wonder.

These experiences could clash with the need for pragmatic ways of generating economic evidence that could be used to homogenise forests into a few “important” numbers. By distilling nature down into measures and metrics, we can lose the nuance between places, contexts, and the trees themselves that make them important and worthwhile. It is, however, possible to generate evidence that serves the pragmatic purpose and respects the complexity.

This is why I am grateful to be able to work with multidisciplinary teams on projects like Valuing Forest Biodiversity, which demonstrate how to strike a balance between pragmatism and specificity. The project provides critical evidence that people value a healthier world, more biodiverse woodlands and are willing to make trade-offs for that future. Moreover, their preferences are nuanced about the future of Britain’s forests and what change might mean for them, their communities, and future generations. Good economics is not just an exercise in quantifying costs and benefits; it ensures that the people and places those numbers represent are not lost along the way.