Valuation of ecosystem services of protected areas

Understanding that the environment is more than the resource base of human economic activities was a watershed in the awareness of the real value of the environment and the need for an assessment of its quality. The complex of benefits from ecosystems that people obtain in the literature became referred as ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are seen as an intermediate link between the processes and phenomena in the environment and human well-being. The main groups of the ecosystem services are providing services (products which obtained from ecosystems), regulating services (benefits which obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes), cultural services (intangible benefits that people obtain from ecosystems) and supporting services (necessary for the production of all other types of services). As practice shows ecosystem services are generally recognized, but at the same time, are undervalued by mankind. The ecosystems of the planet are stressed by human economic activities. Population growth, rising living standards entail that ecosystems do not have time to replicate itself. Inability of ecosystems to remediate in deadlines undermines their basic functions for reproduction of natural resource potential and regulation of processes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. The exertion in ecosystems increases but their abilities due to degradation reduce. To evaluate the potential of the territory from the perspective of ensuring maximum flow of ecosystem services is possible only considering areas that are not affected by human activities. In densely populated areas such possibility can provide the Protected Areas (PAs). Valuation of ecosystem services of PAs can be a solution to the problem of sustainable economic development at both the regional and global levels. For any ecosystem service a set of methods is developed. The main approaches use direct and indirect market value, as well as the principle of 'willingness to pay' (or 'willingness to accept compensation'). The paper uses the concept of total economic value, which synthesizes all approaches mentioned above. Key area of research is the territory of Pasvik Nature Reserve, located in the northwest of the Kola Peninsula. On the basis of the concept of total economic value the most valuable components and landscape features are determined; the latent possibilities of economic development district are revealed (GRP growth, an increase in employment income, an increase in tax liabilities). In spatial planning (or choice one of several alternative types of economic activity) the value equivalent of unspoiled nature should be taken into consideration.