Abstract
BackgroundProtected areas (PA) are central to biodiversity, but their efficiency is challenged by human-induced habitat loss and fragmentation. In the Fennoscandian boreal region, forestry with clearcutting is a threat to biodiversity causing the loss of mature forest elements and deterioration of ecological processes in forest landscapes, ultimately affecting PAs via declined structural connectivity. This paper aims to (1) determine PAs with high, red-listed species concentrations; (2) estimate the change in forest habitat around these PAs on different spatial scales; and (3) determine if forest management intensity is higher around biologically most valuable PAs. Occurrences of red-listed forest-dwelling species in Finland were used to identify PAs harbouring these species and to produce site-specific importance indices. CORINE landcover data was used as a baseline for the distribution of forests to assess the cover of clear-cuttings from 2001 to 2019 with the Global Forest Change (GFC) data set in three buffer areas around the PAs with occurrences of red-listed species.ResultsThe largest proportion of clear-cuts occurred in 1 km and 10 km buffers around the PAs in the southern and middle boreal zones, being ca. 20%. This indicates that the forest habitat is degrading fast at regional and landscape levels. On the positive side, the change in forest cover was lower around the biologically most important PAs compared to other PAs with red-listed species.ConclusionsOpen and free satellite-data based assessments of the cover and change of forests provide reliable estimates about the rates at which mature and old-growth forests are being converted into young managed ones in Finland mainly via clear-cuts on different scales around PAs. The rate of clear-cuts was lowest in adjacent buffer areas next to the most species-rich PAs, which provides opportunities for biodiversity conservation efforts to be targeted to the remaining mature and old-growth forests found in the vicinity of these areas.
Highlights
Protected areas (PA) are central to biodiversity, but their efficiency is challenged by human-induced habitat loss and fragmentation
We focused on PAs with red-listed forest species to study the changes in forest extent and matrix quality
In all three buffers around Pro‐ tected area (RFPA), the change in forest area in 2001–2019 differed significantly between the forest vegetation zones so that it was highest in the southern boreal and smallest in the northern boreal zone (Figs. 2 and 3, Table 1)
Summary
Protected areas (PA) are central to biodiversity, but their efficiency is challenged by human-induced habitat loss and fragmentation. In the Fennoscandian boreal region, forestry with clearcutting is a threat to biodi‐ versity causing the loss of mature forest elements and deterioration of ecological processes in forest landscapes, affecting PAs via declined structural connectivity. The expanding land use and exploitation of natural capital has resulted in two ecologically severe consequences: the global decline of natural habitats’ intactness and the loss of structural and functional connectivity between PAs, given that only ca. An important goal in these initiatives is that the PA network should cover a certain proportion of land or sea area and that the PAs should be ecologically representative and well connected to support the target of a green infrastructure (CBD 2010; European Commission 2013, 2020; Ward et al 2020)
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