Estimation And Realization Of The Ecological Service Value Of The Coastal Shelter Forest Ecosystem In Hainan Island

The coastal shelter forest system proves to be "shelter forest complex compound" which is composed of sand-fixation forests, water and soil conservation forests, water resource conservation forests, farmland shelterbelts and other shelter forests. Coastal special custody forest stands and mangrove forests act as main parts of the coastal shelter forest system. The coastal shelter forests not only have the function of wind-preventing and sand-fixing, water and soil preserving, water conservation and purification, but also have the capacity of withstanding the tsunami and storm tide, maintaining the littoral ecology security, protecting people's life and property security and safeguarding our country's seaside territory. After the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the coastal shelter forest, as one of the most powerful measures to improve the environment, prevent and reduce the nature disasters, attracts more and more attention in the world.Hainan island lies in the"typhoon corridor"which is surrounded by the ocean. It is really urgent for Hainan to construct coastal shelter forests with sane structures and perfect functions. However, at present, Hainan island can not break through the strange cycle of"forestation-destruction-reforestation-redestruction". This paper implement correlated theories and ecosystem service value appraisal methods, estimate the coastal shelter forest ecosystem service value of Hainan island (including coastal special custody forest stands and mangrove forests), including product production, water conservation, soil conservation, carbon dioxide sequestration and oxygen release, atmosphere purification, wind-preventing and sand-fixing, preventing and reducing natural disasters, reducing wave erosion and habitat provision, altogether 9 services functions, in order to provide scientific basis for reasonable decision-making, and seek countermeasures to realize its value. The main conclusions are as followed:Firstly,due to the proneness to typhoon attack and other wind-born destructive threats, Hainan island is only in a better ecological safety condition when it is protected by a well-established coastal shelter forest belts with proper structure and islandwise enclousure. The total value of the coastal shelter forest ecosystem service of Hainan island is estimated to be RMB 40554.60×10⁴yuan·yr^-1, including direct economic value and indirect ecological value. Meanwhile, the total latent value is estimated to be RMB 81407.96Χ10⁴yuan·yr^-1. The realistic value only accounts for the latent value 49.82%, obviously the coastal shelter forest has very big potential space in Hainan island.Among all the ecosystem service value of the coastal shelter forest in Hainan island, the direct economic value is estimated to be RMB 2711.30Χ10⁴yuan·yr^-1 which accounts for 6.69%, the ecological value is estimated to be RMB 37843.30Χ10⁴yuan·yr^-1 which accounts for 93.31%. It suggests that total value mainly reflects on ecological value. The proportion of the ecology value and the direct economic value is 13.96﹕1, which is higher than present research result(10﹕1). This is because coastal shelter forest not only has the ecology function which the common forests have, moreover has the strong protection function.The coastal shelter forest ecosystem service value are found to be related with forest quality, so when we construct coastal shelter forests, we should pursue quantity on one hand, on the other hand, we should pay more attention on their quality.The coastal shelter forest is employed as the ecological public welfare forest. Naturally, their ecological value is unable to fully realize in current economic market. The ecological function is shared free for the exiting of the externality. The government, as the deputy of the social public interests, should pay more, including increasing governmental support, diversifying financing channels, and improving ecological compensation mechanisms and so on. The ecological compensation standard of the coastal shelter forest should be RMB 194yuan·hm-2 each year.The primary factors which influence and hinder the realization of the coastal shelter forest ecosystem service value are following: market failure, government failure, legislation failure and policy failure, bad quality of the system, poor understanding of the importance of the coastal shelter forest, thus it can not deals with the contradiction of the environment protection and economy development and limited financial and technology input. In order to exert the function of the costal shelter forest, we need to construct a continuable coastal shelter forests with multi-trees, complex structures, stable growth, and high capacity of the self-renewal. If condition permitting, we can grow ecology-economy coastal shelter forests. At the same time, we can unify the construction of the coastal shelter forests and the new countryside construction.The present study estimated the value of ecological services of coastal shelter forests in Hainan Island and proposed mechanism for the realization of the theoretical value of the shelter forests. It is a new exploration in valuation researches of ecological services of forests and the results and conclusions of the present study are believed to contribute some more insights into ecological valuation of forest ecosystems and useful to the development and maintenance of a sustainable coastal forest shelter-belts for the benefit of the island environment and island communities.