Wood production and biodiversity conservation are rival forestry objectives in Europe's Baltic Sea Region

Per Angelstam,Marine Elbakidze,Vladimir Naumov,Michael Manton,Zigmars Rendenieks,Janis Priednieks

doi:10.1002/ecs2.2119

Abstract

AbstractThe policy term green infrastructure highlights the need to maintain functional ecosystems as a foundation for sustainable societies. Because forests are the main natural ecosystems in Europe, it is crucial to understand the extent to which forest landscape management delivers functional green infrastructures. We used the steep west–east gradient in forest landscape history, land ownership, and political culture within northern Europe's Baltic Sea Region to assess regional profiles of benefits delivered by forest landscapes. The aim was to support policy‐makers and planners with evidence‐based knowledge about the current conditions for effective wood production and biodiversity conservation. We developed and modeled four regional‐level indicators for sustained yield wood production and four for biodiversity conservation using public spatial data. The western case study regions in Sweden and Latvia had high forest management intensity with balanced forest losses and gains which was spatially correlated, thus indicating an even stand age class distribution at the local scale and therefore long‐term sustained yields. In contrast, the eastern case study regions in Belarus and Russia showed spatial segregation of areas with forest losses and gains. Regarding biodiversity conservation indicators, the west–east gradient was reversed. In the Russian, Belarusian, and Latvian case study regions, tree species composition was more natural than in Sweden, and the size of contiguous areas without forest loss was larger. In all four case study regions, 54–85% of the total land base consisted of forest cover, which is above critical fragmentation thresholds for forest landscape fragmentation. The results show that green infrastructures for wood production and biodiversity conservation are inversely related among the four case study regions, and thus rival. While restoration for biodiversity conservation is needed in the west, intensified use of wood and biomass is possible in the east. However, a cautious approach should be applied because intensification of wood production threatens biodiversity. We discuss the barriers and bridges for spatial planning in countries with different types of land ownership and political cultures and stress the need for a landscape approach based on evidence‐based collaborative learning processes that include both different academic disciplines and stakeholders that represent different sectors and levels of governance.

Highlights

Contemporary policy documents highlight the need to use a development approach that satisfies all sustainability dimensions based on material and immaterial values of landscapes and regions (e.g., European Commission 2009, 2013a)
The results show that green infrastructures for wood production and biodiversity conservation are inversely related among the four case study regions, and rival
Given the lack of harmonized national spatial forest management data in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), we based the analyses on three internationally harmonized thematic data sets: (1) the global data set about forest cover change at pixel size 30 9 30 m produced by Hansen et al (2013) covering the period 2000–2013, (2) the map of coniferous and broad-leaved forest produced by the European Forest Institute (EFI) (Kempeneers et al 2011), and (3) OpenStreetMap data on road networks, for which Ather (2009) demonstrated 80% accuracy compared to official data sets

Summary

Introduction

Contemporary policy documents highlight the need to use a development approach that satisfies all sustainability dimensions based on material and immaterial values of landscapes and regions (e.g., European Commission 2009, 2013a). The EU’s green infrastructure policy (European Commission 2013a, b) retains this ambition and aims at a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of benefits, today often referred to as ecosystem services (e.g., de Groot et al 2002, Lele et al 2013). It incorporates green spaces (or blue if aquatic ecosystems are concerned) and other physical features in terrestrial (including coastal) and marine areas, in both rural and urban settings. The UK approach views green infrastructure as the linking of urban parks and other green space into functional networks to benefit people, while the US approach sees green infrastructure primarily as a biodiversity conservation measure to counteract habitat degradation and fragmentation (e.g., Benedict and McMahon 2006, Allen 2014)

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