Non-protected Forests Research Articles

Correction: Structure, composition, and regeneration status of trees in non-protected forests of Eastern Himalaya

Correction: Structure, composition, and regeneration status of trees in non-protected forests of Eastern Himalaya

Conserving large mammals on small islands: A case study on one of the world’s most understudied pigs, the Togean islands babirusa

Conserving large mammals on small islands poses a great challenge, given their high resource demand within the limited space available. The endangered Togean Islands babirusa (Babyrousa togeanensis) is one of these species, with a distribution range limited to four small islands in the Togean Archipelago, Indonesia. Despite being listed as endangered, very little information is available on the distribution and ecology of this species. To address this critical knowledge gap, we here report the first field-based ecological study of the Togean Islands babirusa across its entire distribution range. Following a stratified random sampling procedure, we distributed camera traps at 103 stations across four islands to collect data on the species distribution from July-October 2022. We performed an occupancy modeling analysis to assess the species’ habitat use, with various habitat features estimated through remote sensing and field measurements as covariates. We found that forest and mangrove availability over a large area positively influenced babirusa habitat selection. Babirusas only made use of agricultural areas when large forest areas were available nearby. Our results highlight the benefits of redesigning the national park area to accommodate babirusa habitat requirements, specifically by reassigning the non-forested park areas (about 30% of the park area) to non-protected forests currently outside the park boundary (about 50% of total forested area). Our case study exemplifies key challenges associated with conserving large mammals on small islands and highlights the importance of following an adaptive management approach, which in this case implies shifting 30% of the current protected area.

The role of the refugee crises in driving forest cover change and fragmentation in Teknaf, Bangladesh

This research has employed remotely sensed data and image classification techniques for the first time to track three decades (1989 to 2021) of forest cover change and forest fragmentation across the largest Rohingya refugee settlement in the Teknaf peninsula, in Bangladesh. Forest fragmentation was evaluated in terms of forest core, patch, perforated, and edge, to characterize forest morphological changes at the landscape level. The results revealed that the forest occupying the study area was 97,400 acres in 1989, which decreased to 92,400 acres by 2015 (5% change) due to firewood collection. However, a sharp decline in the forest was observed in 2017, when the Rohingya refugees settled in the region causing an additional loss of 600 acres of protected forest and 7500 acres of non-protected forests. Such a drastic forest cover change led by refugee settlements has altered forest morphological patterns. As a result, in 1989, the core forest area was 42% which declined to 25% in 2015, and 20% in 2017. This loss of core area greatly increased the patch, perforated and edge areas. Through the efforts of restoration activities, the area of the core forest increased to 28% in 2019 and further increased to 32% in 2021. By 2019, the 5500 acres of non-protected forest was regained, and the protected forest increased by 770 acres. Forest recovery was sustained through the end of 2021, and the total forest in the study area was estimated to be 93,300 acres by this period. This study provides detailed information on the spatial and temporal evaluation of forest change and forest fragmentation metrics intending to understand the historic and ongoing forest disturbance regime, particularly in the ecologically critical zone of the Teknaf wildlife sanctuary. This analysis should encourage managers to enact varying forest restoration and rehabilitation strategies in the region.

These hills called home: quantifying urban forest dynamics in the hills of the Guwahati metropolitan area, india

ABSTRACT Forest loss and fragmentation are critical issues that confront urban landscapes. The urban forests in the hills of the Guwahati Metropolitan Area (GMA) in India have experienced significant transformations. This study assesses the temporal changes of forests in protected and non-protected hills of the GMA. Landsat imageries between 1976 and 2018 were used to understand changes in forest composition and fragmentation using landscape metrics namely, percentage of landscape, number of patches, mean patch size, patch density and largest patch index. The results revealed that the forests of GMA were experiencing intense losses and fragmentation due to increasing non-forest anthropogenic developments. The dense and moderately dense forests declined by 44 and 43%, respectively, as non-forest area increased by 1475 ha between 1976 and 2018. Dense forest demonstrated increasing fragmentation due to the rising number of small patches from 568 to 780. Today, dense forest patches are limited to only three of the eight reserved forests within GMA. The non-protected hills reported a significant 1309% increase of non-forest landuse. Thus, both protected and non-protected forests sustained substantial losses and fragmentation. The analysis could enable policymakers to prioritize urban forest conservation efforts in the GMA.

Resilience of Spanish forests to recent droughts and climate change.

A widespread increase in forest cover is underway in northern Mediterranean forests because of land abandonment and decreased wood demand, but the resilience of these successional forests to climate change remains unresolved. Here we use 18-year time series of canopy greenness derived from satellite imagery (NDVI) to evaluate the impacts of climate change on Spain's forests. Specifically, we analyzed how NDVI was influenced by the climatic water balance (i.e. Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI), using monthly time-series extracted from 3,100 pixels of forest, categorized into ten forest types. The forests increased in leaf area index by 0.01 per year on average (from 1.7 in 2000 to 1.9 in 2017) but there was enormous variation among years related to climatic water balance. Forest types varied in response to drought events: those dominated by drought-avoiding species showed strong covariance between greenness and SPEI, while those dominated by drought-tolerant species showed weak covariance. Native forests usually recovered more than 80% of greenness within the 18 months and the remainder within 5 years, but plantations of Eucalyptus were less resilient. Management to increase the resilience of forests-a key goal of forestry in the Mediterranean region-appears to have had a positive effect: canopy greenness within protected forests was more resilient to drought than within non-protected forests. In conclusion, many of Spain's successional forests have been resilient to drought over the past 18 years, from the perspective of space. Future studies will need to combine remote sensing with field-based analyses of physiological tolerances and mortality processes to understand how Mediterranean forests will respond to the rapid climate change predicted for this region in the coming decades.

A Holistic Analysis for Landslide Susceptibility Mapping Applying Geographic Object-Based Random Forest: A Comparison between Protected and Non-Protected Forests

Despite recent progress in landslide susceptibility mapping, a holistic method is still needed to integrate and customize influential factors with the focus on forest regions. This study was accomplished to test the performance of geographic object-based random forest in modeling the susceptibility of protected and non-protected forests to landslides in northeast Iran. Moreover, it investigated the influential conditioning and triggering factors that control the susceptibility of these two forest areas to landslides. After surveying the landslide events, segment objects were generated from the Landsat 8 multispectral images and digital elevation model (DEM) data. The features of conditioning factors were derived from the DEM and available thematic layers. Natural triggering factors were derived from the historical events of rainfall, floods, and earthquake. The object-based image analysis was used for deriving anthropogenic-induced forest loss and fragmentation. The layers of logging and mining were obtained from available historical data. Landslide samples were extracted from field observations, satellite images, and available database. A single database was generated including all conditioning and triggering object features, and landslide samples for modeling the susceptibility of two forest areas to landslides using the random forest algorithm. The optimal performance of random forest was obtained after building 500 trees with the area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUROC) values of 86.3 and 81.8% for the protected and non-protected forests, respectively. The top influential factors were the topographic and hydrologic features for mapping landslide susceptibility in the protected forest. However, the scores were loaded evenly among the topographic, hydrologic, natural, and anthropogenic triggers in the non-protected forest. The topographic features obtained about 60% of the importance values with the domination of the topographic ruggedness index and slope in the protected forest. Although the importance of topographic features was reduced to 36% in the non-protected forest, anthropogenic and natural triggering factors remarkably gained 33.4% of the importance values in this area. This study confirms that some anthropogenic activities such as forest fragmentation and logging significantly intensified the susceptibility of the non-protected forest to landslides.

Leopard (Panthera pardus) density and diet in a forest corridor of Terai: implications for conservation and conflict management

Abstract ContextIncreasing forest fragmentation and degradation has forced wildlife to live in close proximity to humans, increasing the chances of human–wildlife conflict. Leopard (Panthera pardus) typifies the problem faced by large carnivores. It is a threatened species with a wide distribution, with a large part of their range outside protected areas, leaving them vulnerable to human–leopard conflict. Understanding their status and diet in such non-protected forests is necessary for their long-term conservation. AimsThe present study aimed to estimate leopard density and assess their diet in a non-protected forest. MethodsA camera-trapping survey was carried out in the Kamdi forest corridor outside of protected areas, covering 791.29km2 in the western part of Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) in Nepal. Leopard density was estimated based on the photographs obtained in camera traps, using Bayesian Explicit Capture–recapture (B-SECR) models. Scats of leopards were opportunistically collected (n=60) and their diet analysed through micro-histological characters of hair remains. The frequency of occurrence and relative biomass of different prey species consumed by leopard was calculated. Key resultsLeopard density was estimated to be 1.50 (±0.49 s.e.) 100km−2 in the survey area. Similarly, we identified 13 prey species in the leopard scats. Wild prey contributed the majority (67.8%) of leopard diet, including 23.2% of wild boar (Sus scrofa) and 18.3% of spotted deer (Axis axis). Nearly one-third of leopard diet consists of domestic livestock (cattle, goat, sheep) and dog. ConclusionsLeopard density was found to be relatively low in the forest corridor compared with protected areas. Nearly one-third of leopard diet from domestic livestock and dogs suggests that human–leopard conflict could be problematic in the survey area. ImplicationsIncreasing prey density in the forest corridor and improving livestock husbandry in the periphery will contribute to increase leopard density, reduce the human–leopard conflict and enhance the functionality of the corridor.

What Is Threatening Forests in Protected Areas? A Global Assessment of Deforestation in Protected Areas, 2001–2018

The protection of forests is crucial to providing important ecosystem services, such as supplying clean air and water, safeguarding critical habitats for biodiversity, and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this importance, global forest loss has steadily increased in recent decades. Protected Areas (PAs) currently account for almost 15% of Earth’s terrestrial surface and protect 5% of global tree cover and were developed as a principal approach to limit the impact of anthropogenic activities on natural, intact ecosystems and habitats. We assess global trends in forest loss inside and outside of PAs, and land cover following this forest loss, using a global map of tree cover loss and global maps of land cover. While forests in PAs experience loss at lower rates than non-protected forests, we find that the temporal trend of forest loss in PAs is markedly similar to that of all forest loss globally. We find that forest loss in PAs is most commonly—and increasingly—followed by shrubland, a broad category that could represent re-growing forest, agricultural fallows, or pasture lands in some regional contexts. Anthropogenic forest loss for agriculture is common in some regions, particularly in the global tropics, while wildfires, pests, and storm blowdown are a significant and consistent cause of forest loss in more northern latitudes, such as the United States, Canada, and Russia. Our study describes a process for screening tree cover loss and agriculture expansion taking place within PAs, and identification of priority targets for further site-specific assessments of threats to PAs. We illustrate an approach for more detailed assessment of forest loss in four case study PAs in Brazil, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United States.

A Synergetic Analysis of Sentinel-1 and -2 for Mapping Historical Landslides Using Object-Oriented Random Forest in the Hyrcanian Forests

Despite increasing efforts in the mapping of landslides using Sentinel-1 and -2, research on their combination for discerning historical landslides in forest areas is still lacking, particularly using object-oriented machine learning approaches. This study was accomplished to test the efficiency of Sentinel-derived features and digital elevation model (DEM) derivatives for mapping old and new landslides, using object-oriented random forest. Two forest subsets were selected including a protected and non-protected forest in northeast Iran. Landslide samples were obtained from CORONA images and aerial photos (old landslides), and also field mensuration and high-resolution images (new landslides). Segment objects were generated from a set combination of Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-2A, and some topographic-derived indices using multiresolution segmentation algorithm. Various object features were derived from the main channels of Sentinel images and DEM derivatives in the seven main groups, including spectral layers, spectral indices, geometric, contextual, textural, topographic, and hydrologic features. A single database was created, including landslide samples and Sentinel- and DEM-derived object features. Roughly 20% of landslide-affected objects and non-landslide-affected objects were randomly selected as an input for training the random forest classifier. Two-thirds of the selected objects were assigned as learning samples for classification, and the remainder were used for testing the accuracy of landslide and non-landslide classification. Results indicated that: (1) The sensitivity of mapping historical landslides was 86.6% and 80.3% in the protected and non-protected forests, respectively; (2) the object features of Sentinel-2A and DEM obtained the highest importance with the total scores of 55.6% and 32%, respectively in the protected forests, and 65.4% and 21% respectively in the non-protected forests; (3) the features derived from the combination of Sentinel-1 and -2A demonstrated a total importance of 10% for mapping new landslides; and (4) textural features were obtained in approximately two-thirds of the total scores for mapping new landslides, however a combination of topographic, spectral, textural, and contextual features were the effective predictors for mapping old landslides. This research proposes applying a synergetic analysis of Sentinel- and DEM-derived features for mapping historical landslides; however, there are no uniformly pre-defined influential variables for mapping historical landslides in different forest areas.

Resettlement and landscape-level conservation: Corridors, human-wildlife conflict, and forest use in Central India

Since the origin of the protected area network, authorities have resettled people in the interest of wildlife conservation. However, the impacts of resettlement on wildlife corridors connecting increasingly insular protected areas and the interaction of resettlement with existing human-wildlife conflict (HWC) outside of protected areas remain unclear. Using Kanha National Park (KNP) in central India as a case study, we quantified impacts of 450 households (that were resettled from 2009 to 2013, surveyed in 2016) on non-protected forests at their new settlement locations. We measured forest use for cattle grazing, tendu leaf extraction (a commercial non-timber forest product) and consumption of forest foods. We also quantified HWC risks that resettled households face at their new settlement locations. We use published spatial analyses on designation of the corridor and risks of human wildlife conflict in conjunction with our data to assess post-resettlement impacts at the new settlement locations. Overall, most resettled households (330) have moved to existing villages that lie outside of wildlife corridors around KNP. They comprise <10% of existing populations at most of their new settlement villages. Many resettled households and their non-resettled neighbors face high HWC risks due to the spatial patterns of HWC around KNP. Controlling for assets and proximity to forest, resettled households own more cattle, are less involved in tendu trade, and consume fewer forests foods than non-resettled neighbors. Model results suggest that increasing off-farm economic opportunities would reduce pressures on forest resources for both resettled and non-resettled households. Our findings, while limited to the KNP landscape, provide approaches applicable in other human-dominated places to design resettlement strategies towards landscape-level conservation goals.

Effects of national forest‐management regimes on unprotected forests of the Himalaya

Globally, deforestation continues, and although protected areas effectively protect forests, the majority of forests are not in protected areas. Thus, how effective are different management regimes to avoid deforestation in non-protected forests? We sought to assess the effectiveness of different national forest-management regimes to safeguard forests outside protected areas. We compared 2000-2014 deforestation rates across the temperate forests of 5 countries in the Himalaya (Bhutan, Nepal, China, India, and Myanmar) of which 13% are protected. We reviewed the literature to characterize forest management regimes in each country and conducted a quasi-experimental analysis to measure differences in deforestation of unprotected forests among countries and states in India. Countries varied in both overarching forest-management goals and specific tenure arrangements and policies for unprotected forests, from policies emphasizing economic development to those focused on forest conservation. Deforestation rates differed up to 1.4% between countries, even after accounting for local determinants of deforestation, such as human population density, market access, and topography. The highest deforestation rates were associated with forest policies aimed at maximizing profits and unstable tenure regimes. Deforestation in national forest-management regimes that emphasized conservation and community management were relatively low. In India results were consistent with the national-level results. We interpreted our results in the context of the broader literature on decentralized, community-based natural resource management, and our findings emphasize that the type and quality of community-based forestry programs and the degree to which they are oriented toward sustainable use rather than economic development are important for forest protection. Our cross-national results are consistent with results from site- and regional-scale studies that show forest-management regimes that ensure stable land tenure and integrate local-livelihood benefits with forest conservation result in the best forest outcomes.

Lost benefits and carbon uptake by protection of Indian plantations

There is a range of problems in assessing how protection of a specific forest to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) affect global emissions of greenhouse gases. This paper shows how knowledge and information about the biophysical characteristics of forests can be combined with theories of forest management and economic behaviour to derive the impacts on global emissions of REDD+. A modelling experiment from India, where 10% of the forest plantations in eight different regions are protected, shows that the biophysical characteristics of forests are decisive for the global impacts on emissions. In regions with slow-growing forests, agents in the non-protected forests are able to increase their output significantly to fill the demand from the protected forests. This opportunity is strictly limited in regions with fast-growing forests. Therefore, prices increase far more in regions with fast-growing forests than in slow-growing forests. Over time, the markets for Indian forestry products contribute to reduce the resulting price differences across regions. When the carbon uptake from protected forests approaches zero, the leakage of emissions to other Indian forests is between 20 and 40%. Only a small part of this is international leakage. Combining different models also helps to identify knowledge gaps, and to distinguish gaps that potentially may be filled with data and new knowledge, and gaps due to different angling of modelling biophysical processes and modelling of economic behaviour.

Scenario analyses for the effects of harvesting intensity on development of forest resources, timber supply, carbon balance and biodiversity of Finnish forestry

We used national scenario analyses to examine the effects of harvesting intensity on the development of forest resources, timber supply, carbon balance, and biodiversity indicators of Finnish forestry in nine 10-year simulation periods (90-year simulation period) under the current climate. Data from the 11th National Forest Inventory of Finland were used to develop five even-flow harvesting scenarios for non-protected forests with the annual harvest ranging from 40 to 100millionm3. The results show that the highest annual even-flow harvest level, which did not decrease the growing stock volume over the 90-year simulation period, was 73millionm3. The total 90-year timber production, consisting of harvested volume and change in growing stock volume, was maximized when the annual harvest was 60millionm3. Volume increment increased for several decades when harvested volume was less than the current volume increment. The total carbon balance of forestry was the highest with low volume of harvested wood. Low harvested volume increased the values of biodiversity indicators, namely volume of deciduous trees, amount of deadwood and area of old forest.

Monitoring selective logging with Landsat satellite imagery reveals that protected forests in Western Siberia experience greater harvest than non-protected forests

SUMMARYWhen timber harvesting is an important source of local income and forest resources are declining, even forests that are designated as protected areas may become vulnerable. Therefore, regular monitoring of forest disturbance is necessary to enforce the protection of forest ecosystems. However, mapping forest disturbance with satellite imagery can be complicated if the majority of the harvesting is selective logging and not clearcuts. Our goal was to map both selective logging and clearcuts within and outside of protected areas in Western Siberia, a region with a highly developed timber industry. Combining summer and winter imagery allowed us to accurately estimate not only clearcuts, but also selective logging. Winter Landsat images substantially improved our classification and resulted in a highly accurate forest disturbance map (97.5% overall accuracy and 86% user accuracy for the rarest class, clearcuts). Selective logging and stripcuts were the dominant disturbance types, accounting for 96.3% of all forest disturbances, versus 3.7% for clearcuts. The total annual forest disturbance rate (i.e. disturbance rate for clearcuts, stripcuts and selective logging together) was 0.53%, but total forest disturbance within protected areas was greater than in non-protected forest (0.66% versus 0.50%, respectively), and so was the annual rate of selective logging (i.e. without clearcuts, 0.37% versus 0.25%, respectively). Our results highlight that monitoring only clearcuts without assessing selective logging might result in significant underestimation of forest disturbance. Also, when timber harvesting is important for the local economy and when protected areas have valuable timber resources that have already been depleted elsewhere, then additional protection may be necessary in order to maintain natural forests within protected areas. We suggest that this is the situation in our study area in Western Siberia right now and is likely the situation in many other parts of the globe as well.

Pestle-pounding and nut-cracking by wild chimpanzees at Kpala, Liberia.

Bossou in Guinea is one of the longitudinal study sites of wild chimpanzees, and is located only a few kilometers away from the national border between Guinea and Liberia. The forests in the area spread over the national border of Guinea, and the Bossou chimpanzees have been found to use the neighboring Liberian forest. Local assistants and I started surveying these forests in Liberia, and found that additional groups of chimpanzees lived in Nimba County, Liberia. The present study reports tool use behaviors by chimpanzees living in forests of the Kpala area in Nimba County. We directly observed pestle-pounding behavior, which had been confirmed only in the Bossou group of wild chimpanzees. Moreover, we heard sounds of nut-cracking, and successfully filmed chimpanzees cracking open oil palm nuts with stones. The uniqueness of stone-tool use behaviors has been emphasized with the group of chimpanzees that have been longitudinally studied at Bossou, but the behaviors probably have a wide distribution in this area. Emigrant chimpanzees are thought to contribute to the propagation of the cultural tool-use behaviors. It is also thought that, if the distantly located groups share similar cultural behaviors, there might be genetic exchange between them. Conservation efforts should be needed not only at Bossou, but also in a wider area including nonprotected forests beyond the national border.

Protection vs. commercial management: Spatial and temporal analysis of land cover changes in the tropical forests of Central India

Tropical forests worldwide are undergoing rapid changes due to increasing human populations and varied land use practices. In an effort to protect these forests and their species, the number of protected areas has increased exponentially in recent decades. Clearly protected areas play a crucial role in conservation efforts and this strategy has been found to be successful in several studies. However, protected areas are often embedded within a matrix of other land cover types, including non-protected forests, agricultural fields, or urban areas. It is therefore critical for park management to think beyond the borders of their protected areas and work to maintain ecological integrity of the surrounding matrix and the connectivity between protected areas. This study integrates remote sensing, GIS and field observations to examine the effects of different management strategies on land cover changes. As a case study we examine a tiger reserve in Central India which is surrounded by commercially managed forests, representative of many protected areas throughout India. Findings of this study show that while protected areas play an important role in conservation, alternative approaches including favorable management policies could also be effective to extend conservation over larger areas.

Woodlands across Swedish urban gradients: Status, structure and management implications

More than 70% of the European population live in urban areas, and the level of urbanisation is steadily increasing. As a result urban and peri-urban woodlands are decreasing due to infill development within cities and sprawl (or expansion) outside cities, respectively. However, comparative assessments of urban woodland resources at international and national levels are lacking. We used GIS analyses to quantify the proportion of urban woodlands in 100 Swedish cities with >10 000 inhabitants. Field surveys were used to measure vegetation structure in 474 urban woodlands across an urban gradient in a subset of 34 cities. Our results showed that the proportion of the city area comprised of urban woodland varied between 1 and 40% with an average of 20%. Commuter cities close to the largest cities and cities with stable populations had higher proportion of urban woodland than cities with large population increase. Urban and peri-urban woodlands cover an area larger than the total area of protected forests in Sweden and had higher amounts of dead wood than typical non-protected forests. Thus, these woodlands are potential areas supporting conservation of species depending on dead wood. Commuter cities are expected to have a large population increase in the upcoming years, which may lead to further fragmentation of urban woodlands in these cities. Management greatly affected the vegetation structure in woodlands across the urban gradient, and decision makers and urban planners need to be informed about the ecological consequences of different management actions.

Reinforcement capacity of potential buffer zones: Forest structure and conservation values around forest reserves in southern Sweden

Buffer zones may reinforce protected areas and are often recommended, but have rarely been systematically studied in temperate forests. Globally, temperate broadleaved forest is considered to be the most disturbed biome, with small, scattered natural fragments. In theory, it is often assumed that nature reserves have heavily exploited surroundings. We tested this assumption using a random sample of 49 small reserves (forest area 5–225 ha) that lacked buffer zones. We expected two major outcomes: either a sharp decline in conservation value from the forest reserves to the surroundings, or a gradient of decreasing value from the reserves and outwards. Basic structural indicators of red-listed forest species were studied in the reserves, in their potential buffers (200 m wide), and in non-protected forests outside the buffers. On average, southern broadleaved deciduous forest covered 37% of the forested area in the reserves, 18% in the potential buffers and 5% in non-protected forest outside the buffers. The density of large living trees (>40 cm diameter at breast height, dbh) was 30 stems per woodland hectare in the reserves, decreasing to 15 in the buffers, and to 10 outside the buffers. Similar, but less marked gradients, were found for dead standing trees and downed dead wood. The diversity of trees and shrubs indicated relatively high conservation values in the buffers. Valuable reserves had valuable potential buffers, as conservation values of the reserves were positively correlated with those of the buffers. Our results show that heavy exploitation of surroundings cannot a priori be assumed for nature reserves. The results are encouraging for preservation of temperate forest biodiversity, since small reserves seem to be reinforced by their surroundings, but we suggest that protection by law or by other means is necessary to maintain the conservation values of potential buffer zones for the future.

Buffer zones for forest reserves: opinions of land owners and conservation value of their forest around nature reserves in southern Sweden.

Buffer zones around reserves are often suggested, but have rarely been evaluated. We examined their design for small forest reserves (5–225 ha), where buffer zones (200 m wide) would protect the reserves and reduce negative edge effects. The potential buffer zones could be partly protected, but remain as private land. Alternatively, the state may buy land outside reserves (to be included in reserves). To consider opinions of forest owners, we interviewed 33 private forest owners in potential buffer zones of reserves. The respondents were weakly positive to conservation, but disliked a state reserve on their land, or a buffer zone where 50% of the forest would be protected without compensation; however, with compensation the majority of them were neutral or positive to such a buffer zone. In a choice between buffer zone or reserve bought by the state, the great majority of the respondents chose the buffer zone (compensation paid, land still private). We found no relationships between opinions of respondents and conservation values of their forests (densities of old and dead trees), but older owners had forests of higher value. The forest in the potential buffer zones had higher conservation value than other non-protected forests in southern Sweden. Thus, buffer zones may be valuable, and we suggest they are created in cooperation with local residents where this is possible.