Abstract: Under the guidance of the scientific, comprehensive, operational and comparative principles and based on fundamentals of forest ecology and system science,this paper puts forward that the composite index system of regional forest ecosystem service quality evaluation is composed of forest ecosystem productivity,forest ecosystem health,distribution of forest and background of eco-environmental quality.The value of forest ecosystem service quality for the provinces in China is analyzed by the method of AHP and the weighed average composite quality index. On the basis of such an analysis,cluster analysis on weighted evaluation indicators of the provinces is made. Then,the provinces are divided into 5 classes for forest ecosystem service quality.The results reveal that the fundamental spatial pattern is characterized by high levels distributed in the southeast provinces probably due to relatively higher precipitation,Then the levels rapidly decrease from the southeast provinces to the northwest provinces.

Key words: forest ecosystem, ecosystem services, index system