Quantifying and mapping forest-related environmental education and training in Saxony, Germany

Abstract

Forest ecosystems provide a wide range of services that contribute to human well-being, but not all of them are accounted for on a spatial and temporal scale. Furthermore, studies on forest regulation and maintenance services predominate, while studies on cultural ecosystem services are on a comparatively low level. This applies especially to environmental education and training, a cultural service which is among the least assessed ecosystem services.

Here, environmental education and training is explicitly related to a forest context, assessing environmental education and training as offered by forest facilities run by the Saxony State Forestry Service, based in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. People with access to forest-related environmental education and training, considering a 90-minute maximum travel time for individual and public transport are assessed to determine the supply of this ecosystem service. The results indicate that Saxony’s entire population has access to environmental education and training within 90 min when using individual transport and less than 50% when using public transport. Furthermore, strong spatial variations in accessibility via public transport exist with high supply of this cultural service in and around the cities of Dresden and Leipzig and a comparatively low supply in the region of Chemnitz.

The present research contributes to a more holistic quantification and mapping of forest ecosystem services and helps to overcome limitations of forest function mapping. In an international context, the reproducibility of our study may support State Forestry Services of other countries to transfer the proposed approach to their case.