PEFC is promoting the ECOBIO project, an initiative designed to transform forest ecosystem services into economic opportunities in rural areas. The initiative seeks to create new sources of income for forest owners and managers, helping fund the active and sustainable management of forests through market‑based mechanisms, including a carbon credit approach linked to PEFC certification.
Forests generate essential benefits for society which, however, remain largely invisible in markets and spatial planning. ECOBIO was created to measure, certify and highlight the value of these ecosystem services, transforming them into real development opportunities for rural areas.
Tools tailored to regional contexts will be developed for the measurement, certification and valuation of the main forest ecosystem services, including carbon, water and biodiversity, as well as recreational, social, cultural and spiritual services. These tools will be linked to sustainable forest management models. The initiative is led by PEFC Spain, in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Valencia, the University of Huelva and PEFC Galicia.
ECOBIO will support progress towards new bioeconomy models based on natural capital, facilitating the generation of carbon and water credits and agreements for environmental services that connect forest owners and managers with companies and investors. In addition, indicators and methodologies will be developed to integrate functional biodiversity at landscape scale into forest management and to recognise and value recreational, social, health and wellbeing, cultural and spiritual ecosystem services through participatory approaches.
Spain’s more than three million hectares of PEFC‑certified forest, managed according to sustainability criteria, provide a solid and scalable foundation for implementing these solutions nationwide. Pilot projects in Andalusia, Galicia, Castile‑La Mancha, the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia will allow the approach to be tested under real conditions and replicated at wider scale, strengthening rural resilience to climate change, depopulation and biodiversity loss.
