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The Mediterranean basin, socially and ecologically diverse, is facing challenges at many levels and notably, high unemployment rates, strong pressures on natural resources and climate change. A sustainable, inclusive bio-based economy can be part of the solution, by creating jobs and reducing the ecological footprint.  Society must look back to nature for replacing non-renewable feedstocks with green solutions and bio-based materials. Knowledge from science and practice must be leveraged to develop nature-based solutions and sustainable value chains, deeply rooted in the community and local environment. Mediterranean forests are rich in goods and services. The challenge is how to best incorporate them into a smart and efficient bioeconomy. Technological breakthroughs, social innovation and increased societal engagement will play a key role in taking advantage of the current momentum. The creation of employment and integration opportunities must be a priority in the Mediterranean, with a special focus on vulnerable sectors of society. The potential and the creativity of the young and rural populations, locals as well as migrants, must be unleashed. Third-sector actors can play a major role along with public and private initiatives. Creativity alone cannot guarantee long-lasting solutions. A supporting policy framework, favourable business environment and societal engagement are needed to facilitate innovation and promote partnerships at multiple levels. The bioeconomy offers an opportunity for a deeper integration of economic, environmental and social objectives. It demands a stronger focus on synergies and multifunctionality. New knowledge and technologies are helping to manage and monitor multifunctional forestry.

Mediterranean forest ecosystems provide multiple non-timber forest products and services which are crucial for the socio-economic development of the rural and urban areas of the Mediterranean region. On one hand, in the Northern Mediterranean sub-region, the socio-economic changes of the last decades, triggered by the urbanization of our society and better living standards, have lead to an increase in the demand of the social and environmental functions of our forests. This had a positive effect in the economic importance of some non-wood products (pine-nuts, mushrooms, aromatic plants, etc) and different forest services (CO2 sequestration, recreation, nature conservation, etc). At the same time, rural areas have experienced a lack of manpower and a decrease in the profitability of traditional forestry, which has lead to land abandonment and accumulation of forest fuels. This had a strong effect in increasing the risk of forest fires in the last decades. On the other hand, in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean sub-regions, non-timber forest products still are relevant primary resources, in particular silvopastoralism, for the subsistence of local economies, while some forest environmental functions (fight against desertification, regulation of the micro-climate, regulating water resources, etc) are key for the sustainable development of these societies. This framework requires new approaches in forest management and planning as well as in forest policy and economics to address the complexity and multifunctionality of the Mediterranean forests. The international scientific seminar “Modelling, valuing and managing Mediterranean forest ecosystems for non-timber goods and services” organized by EFIMED and the Universidad de Valladolid (Forestry School of Palencia) in 26–27 October 2007 brought together Mediterranean scientists from relevant disciplines (forest ecology, forest management, applied economics, operations research, and information technologies, etc.) in order to discuss and present the latest scientific methods and results on modelling, valuing and managing non-timber products and services in different Mediterranean countries. 

In Mediterranean Europe, society seems to have lost the capacity to generate value from large portions of the landscape. This leads to land abandonment and the expansion of unmanaged forests. Landscapes are increasingly dominated by continuous, high density young forests, an extremely favourable setting for the rapid propagation of high intensity fires. The cumulative effects of global warming, fire-prone landscapes, changes in urbanisation patterns as well as the lack of perceived value from local populations and the high number of fire ignitions, create the perfect storm for catastrophic forest fires. The situation is now exceeding fire suppression capabilities in many countries, including those with sophisticated aerial and ground equipment, well-prepared fire brigades and substantial budgets. The cost of fire mitigation and control amounts to several billion euros each year and jeopardizes forest policy implementation in Southern Europe. Forests have become a sink for already tight public resources. Under the current approach, maintaining suppression effectiveness levels will require significant additional resources. A new paradigm is needed. The focus must be shifted towards resource management in order to reduce fuel loads and fuel continuity at large, landscape scales. Only then will suppression efforts become feasible. This can be made possible through the creation of functional value chains based on wood, non-wood products, agroforestry and ecosystem services. Developing the bioeconomy vision in the Mediterranean not only has the potential to reduce fire risk, but also to help convert forests into a source of income. 

The aim of the study is to analyze different forest management practices (selective and traditional thinning) in black pine peri-urban forest in Central Italy, by investigating their contribution in terms of provisioning (wood production), cultural (rec­reational benefits) and regulating (climate change mitigation) ES. For each management option was performed: (1) a biophysical assessment of selected ES by using primary data and calculating indicators for wood production with special regard to biomass for energy use (living trees and deadwood volume harvested), recreational benefits (tourists’ preferences for each for­est management practice),  climate change mitigation (carbon sequestration in above-ground and below-ground biomass), and (2) an economic valuation of wood production, recreational benefits and climate change mitigation ES using direct and indirect methods (environmental evaluation techniques). The results show that the effects of the selective thinning on ES are higher that the effects of the traditional thinning. The economic value of the three ES provided by traditional and selective thinning are respectively: bioen­ergy production 154.2 € ha-1 yr-1 and 223.3 € ha-1 yr-1; recreational benefits 193.2 € ha-1 yr-1 and 231.9 € ha-1 yr-1; carbon sequestration 29.0 € ha-1 yr-1 and 36.2 € ha-1 yr-1. The integrated (biophysical and economic) assessment of ES in addition to the trade-off analysis can provide multi-perspective insights for forest policy makers and can be included as a part of the local forest management plans.