Forest Enterprise England, the land management agency of the Forestry Commission, has published the first organisation-wide Natural Capital Account that begins to quantify the full value of the services provided by the natural assets on its entire 254,000 hectare landholding.
The initial, partial account includes detailed management costs and commercial returns from the estate alongside a valuation of the benefits to society such as recreation and climate regulation.
More functions that may offer significant higher value, such as air and water quality and flood risk mitigation, need further research before being included.
Simon Hodgson, Chief Executive of Forest Enterprise England the Agency manages England’s national woods and forests said:
“I am extremely proud that we are the first organisation to produce a Natural Capital Account that begins to show the full value of the benefits derived from the land we manage on behalf of the nation."
“We know this first step needs developing and will work with others to refine existing estimates and expand the coverage to include more areas including air and water quality and flood risk mitigation.”
“Without these refinements we know the indicative £11.9bn value is likely to be an underestimate of the full value. We see this as providing an order of magnitude valuation based on best data available and should be interpreted as such.
“As we move forward, I see this becoming a valuable strategic management tool complementing our decision-making processes, allowing us to track the condition of natural capital and its value to help us understand the values and trade-offs in maintaining the full value of England’s woods and forests.”
The account has been developed with eftec environmental economics consultants and uses the Natural Capital Committee’s agreed framework.
The Natural Capital Committee (NCC), chaired by Professor Dieter Helm, was set up in 2012 to provide advice to Government on the sustainable use of natural capital. The Committee worked with eftec, RSPB and PWC to develop a framework to guide the development of Natural Capital Accounts. Forest Enterprise England and eftec have worked together using this to construct FEE’s account, which is the first organisation-wide application of the framework.
Click here to download a copy of Forest Enterprise England’s Corporate Natural Capital Account
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