Agroforestry accounting system for measuring environmental incomes at social prices: application to holm oak open woodlands in andalusia-spain

Abstract

The brief description of the sequence of accounts for the products in the SNA and SEEA-EEA guidelines compared does not allow for a detailed discussion on what might be the future development of the satellite standard system of accounts. The ultimate environmental-economic aim of the application of the Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS) to holm oak open woodlands (HOW) in Andalusia-Spain is to test the hypothesis that the valuations of ecosystem services and changes in individual environmental assets of products consumed in the period and those expected to be consumed in the future require the prior measurement of the total income of the products valued at social price in order to carry out estimates, since the environmental component of the total income of an individual product is a residual value subjected to the priorities of remuneration for labor services and manufactured capital. We show that it is possible to coherently estimate the total income from products of a silvopastoral landscape by applying the AAS and the refined System of National Accounts (rSNA) as both embrace the privately-owned farmer activities of timber, cork, firewood, nuts, grazing (by game species and livestock), conservation forestry, landowner residential services and private amenity, as well as public activities by government of fire services, water supply, mushrooms, carbon, free- access recreation, landscape conservation and threatened wild biodiversity preservation. The comparisons of the results, at producer prices in the rSNA and at the social price in the ASS, reveal that the rSNA values the total ES and GVA of the HOW at 28% and 37% respectively of the AAS valuations