- India’s forests provide significant economic and livelihood benefits, particularly for people who depend on forest ecosystems for food, employment and resources.
- Forests provide many ecosystem services that are often not reflected in market-based assessments.
- Forest ecosystem valuations can strengthen conservation, but researchers stress the need for more consistent methods and for these findings to reach forest-dependent communities, policymakers and younger generations.
India’s forests provide annual ecosystem services worth $2.5 trillion, highlights a new study published in Environmental and Sustainability Indicators. Titled Contribution of forest ecosystem services in India using meta-regression approach, the study reveals that the per-hectare value of ecosystem benefits from India’s forests is about $31,000 per year. Among forest types, tropical dry deciduous forests provide the highest economic value at $703 billion, annually.
Defined as the direct and indirect benefits that bolster human wellbeing and survival, ecosystem services are further classified into provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. With regard to forests, provisioning services include goods obtained from forest lands, such as timber, food and medicinal plants. Regulating services include carbon sequestration and soil protection, while cultural services include recreational benefits and sacred groves, among others. Supporting services include services such as providing habitats for different species.
The authors also examined the economic value of individual services and found that India’s forests provide provisioning, regulating and cultural services worth about $9.64, $12.15 and $17.17 billion, respectively, every year. Supporting services were not analysed in the study.
While there is a growing interest in understanding the economic impacts of forest ecosystem services, mainly fuelled by the rise in awareness about the role forests play in climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation, the study highlights the crucial need for incorporating these services into policies and forest conservation measures for better results.
“Policymakers increasingly recognise that many of the benefits provided by forests, such as carbon storage, watershed and drought protection, are not reflected in conventional economic indicators or market prices. As a result, forests have often been undervalued in development planning, leading to decisions that overlook their long-term economic and social contributions,” shares M. Balasubramanian, Associate Professor, Centre for Ecological Economics and Natural Resources (CEENR) at the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru. Balasubramanian is the lead author of the paper.
“There is now a global shift towards integrating natural capital and ecosystem services into national development strategies. Countries are realising that sustainable economic growth depends on maintaining healthy ecosystems. This has increased the demand for robust scientific evidence that quantifies the economic value of forest ecosystem services,” he adds.
Understanding forest contributions
Balasubramanian and other researchers involved in the study did a meta-regression analysis of 45 studies conducted in India on forest ecosystem services between 2000 and 2024. Since studies in the past were held using different methodologies to evaluate different services across forest types, the meta-regression approach enabled the researchers to ascertain a comprehensive estimate of the services provided by Indian forests while factoring in variations between studies.
The analysis also revealed that the data related to ecosystem services were spread over a wide range. The authors state in the paper that the analysis is limited by the variations in values owing to differing methodologies used in the studies analysed.
“Our approach allowed us to identify the key factors that influence the value of forest ecosystem services and to generate more robust and nationally relevant estimates. It brings together decades of research into a single analytical framework and accounts for differences in forest types, ecosystem services, valuation methods, and regional characteristics, helping us separate local variations from broader national patterns,” adds Balasubramanian.
The study also shows how the evaluation of forest ecosystem services changed over time. In the early years of the study period (2000-2010), few evaluations focused on these services and the values ascertained by them were lower due to conservative approaches. The studies in this period also revealed a lack of awareness and demand for regulating services such as carbon sequestration.
Between 2016 and 2020, new and improved methodologies emerged, and studies moved away from rigorous monetary assessments towards more qualitative analysis of forest ecosystem services, the authors note. More recent studies show greater variation in their valuation assessments, revealing a growing interest in understanding the importance of forests without a consistent framework to examine these services.
More than just numbers
Kamaljit K. Sangha, Professor of Ecological Economics at Charles Darwin University, Australia, and a co-author of the study, shares that the values in the study underscore the importance of forests in India’s economy, mainly in supporting the livelihoods of approximately 300 million people who depend on forest resources. “Even this is a conservative estimate because many of the adivasi, agricultural and rural communities interact with forests for food, employment and resources on a daily basis. About 65% of the country’s population lives in rural areas, and considering this percentage, the role of forests would be much larger than what we estimate,” emphasises Sangha.
The researcher adds that the need of the hour is to develop a holistic understanding of the role forests play in the lives and livelihoods of these populations while involving them in conservation.
Sangha’s thoughts have been echoed in a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations on forest-sector employment. The report states that worldwide, 42 million people are employed by the forest sector, with Asia leading the way in this regard.
“Many natural landscapes in India are indeed cultural-spiritual landscapes with which people have special connections, and these connections play an important role in people’s health and wellbeing. We need to revive these connections. More work is needed to account for the wellbeing benefits of the ecosystem. Forests help conserve biodiversity, protect soil and water systems and support our agricultural systems. And yet, what is predominantly measured is what flows in the market, that is largely timber,” she adds.
In the analysis, Balasubramanian and team find that the market price method, where the economic value of forest-related products and services bought and sold in the market is measured, is the most employed method of valuation across studies.
Surender Kumar, Senior Professor, Department of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi, shares that studies on forest ecosystem services often resort to asking people their willingness to pay for a particular service to understand the total economic value of these services.
“What we need to understand is that without a benchmark, even for marketed commodities, with which people are familiar, they cannot quote an appropriate price. For forest-based services, which people don’t engage with on a regular basis, estimates will be even more challenging. This is one of the reasons studies vary in their values,” says Kumar who is not associated with the study.
Kumar points out that a more effective approach would be to quantify what would be lost if forests are destroyed. “Instead of looking at forests at large, studies can focus on, say, one acre of forest land and quantify all the services that it provides.” That would provide a reasonable estimate of the ecosystem services provided by forests, and thus a realistic perspective on what would be lost if the forest land did not exist.
Harisha R.P., conservation biologist at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and The Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, says that as much as these values provide direction for forest conservation and policymaking, they are also crucial to raise awareness among other stakeholders, especially the communities dependent on these resources. Harisha is also not associated with the study.
In his work, the biologist documents the traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous communities in Karnataka. “A lot of my work involves documenting traditional practices and indigenous knowledge, which is also translated into the local language, so communities can access them. Similarly, valuations of this nature, while important for academicians and research scholars, must also reach other stakeholders,” says Harisha.
Harisha adds that the younger generation among these communities, who are slowly moving away from traditional practices and conservation efforts, must be made aware of the crucial role forests play across services. He hopes that once they understand how invaluable forests are, they will feel more encouraged to protect the ecosystem and conserve the Indigenous practices that sustain the resources obtained from them.
“The bottom line is, we cannot really evaluate nature’s services. It is very complicated, and putting a number on it is not easy,” says Harisha. The researcher hopes that these valuations can be used to “promote, protect and practice” conservation while appreciating all that forests do for people and the environment.
Banner image: A sambar deer in the forests of the Western Ghats in Chikmagaluru, Karnataka. Image by Anil Sharma via Pexels.
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