This working paper presents and substantiates a detailed concept for rewarding the ecosystem services of forests in Germany. The concept accounts for actually provided services (rather than for management measures), and focuses on the productivity of the particular forests/forest enterprises as well as on society’s demand for the individual forest services. The concept consists of two levels. Level 1 comprises global services, in particular for climate and biodiversity protection; here the amount of services provided and the respective payments are being deduced from international agreements and the corresponding national strategies, as far as possible. Level 2 comprises further recreational and protection services, where demand exhibits more pronounced regional and local differences; on this level, service amounts and the respective payments are determined by individual contracts, which require at least a pro-rata contribution of the interested stakeholders. Throughout, we legitimise the concept and its individual elements by relating it to the given legal situation, and to the results of democratic decision making. Finally, we discuss the conceivable incentive and steering effects of the proposal, and the necessary reforms of the existing subsidisation system for forestry.