Trade-offs between fire prevention and provision of ecosystem services in Slovenia

Forests have a potential to provide the society with a number of different ecosystem services. Their actual provision depends upon the demand expressed by different stakeholder groups. To comply with the expressed needs for the provision, forest managers have to define management objectives and implement management measures. However, limited financial resources designated for forest management and possible conflicts between different stakeholders often oblige forest managers to make trade-offs. To define the importance of specific services, interaction with stakeholder groups is one of the key features. In case of large stakeholder groups, like the general public, opinion pools can be used to obtain the information needed to make the necessary decisions. In the paper we present the relative importance of fire prevention measures in comparison to recreation, water purification, and animal and plant diversity in Slovenia. This information was obtained by conducting a choice modelling experiment. The results of the study show that the general public does not consider fires as an important threat to Slovenian forests and that fire prevention is less important than provision of other ecosystem services, considered in the study. At the same time, respondents believe that fire prevention measures in Slovenian forests are not adequate.

► The Slovenian population considers that there is a moderate forest fires risk.
► Burned area reduction is considered as beneficial and has a positive marginal value.
► Public assigns lower importance to fire prevention than to other management goals.