Resource information
The country’s forest areas occupy 21.7
million ha (approximately 27.6 percent of its total surface
area), and are inhabited by close to 10 percent of its total
population. The forest sector generates a variety of timber
and non-timber products and eco-services. The Turkish
government has put great effort into reforestation and
forest management, increasing the total area of forests. In
their tenth national development plan (2014-2018), the
Turkish Government has decided to take a series of actions,
including quantifying the value of natural resources and
their ecosystem services and taking them into account in
making and implementing policy decisions. In response to the
government’s request for technical assistance in valuing
natural resources, the World Bank assisted the Directorate
General of Forestry (DGF) under the Turkish Ministry of
Forestry and Water Affairs (MoFWA) in conducting a pilot
study in the Bolu forest area to identify and quantify the
forest products and services used by humans and assess the
possibility to expand and scale up forest valuation. The
purpose of this report is to summarize the study’s findings
and discuss its policy implications and next steps. The
report contains six chapters, chapter one gives
introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of the forest
sector in Turkey, from physical conditions to institutional
aspects. Chapter three presents the justification and
application of forest valuation and accounting, while the
valuation methods for forest products and services are
introduced in chapter four. Chapter five discusses the
findings and results of the Bolu pilot study. The policy
implications, areas for improvement, and recommendations for
scaling up are discussed in chapter six.
