Multifunctionality of mountain forests and economic evaluation

Mountain forests provide many functions, producing useful services to the man-in order to make decisions concerning their management it is necessary to evaluate them properly, taking into account expectations from individuals and society. To this purpose, different methods can be used, some of which are based on economic-monetary evaluations by contrast, others allow choices to be made according to a set of priorities, using suitable indicators. Decisions concerning the management of forests may imply trade-off's between their different functions. They can also make some individuals better off and some worse off. Therefore, methods and techniques taking into account these different aspects are needed. Evaluating multifunctionality therefore represents a challenge involving manifold aspects, economical, technical, social and efficient methods should be chosen, which may be easily used. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.