The concept of ecosystem services gained general recognition following
publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MA]
(2005), in which ecosystem services were divided into four categories:
supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural. Forests are
the source of many ecosystem services, including food, fibers, and
firewood, on which local human populations are dependent. In addition
to provisioning services, forest biomes affect regulating services,
such as local climate regulation, disease regulation, flood and erosion
control and fresh water production. Forests are also remarkably valuable
for their supporting and cultural services, which are often diffi-
cult to measure (MA, 2005). Carbon sequestration and storage, in
which plantations can play a significant role (Wright et al., 2000;