Home / Education and Outreach / Interpretative Signs / Economic Value of Trees
Economic Value of Trees
People need forests. Plants maintain a healthy atmosphere and temper the effect of storms, droughts and floods.
Trees - both standing timber and coarse woody debris (CWD) - play an important role in protecting water catchments and ensuring clean water supplies. In order to help governments make more sustainable economic decisions, environmental analysts have begun to attach monetary value to the services that plants and their associated ecosystems provide. In 1997, the total value of the world's ecosystem services was estimated at US$33.3 trillion, nearly twice the global Gross National Product (GNP) (source: Nature 387, p. 253).
