Forest management plan as a policy instrument: carrot, stick or sermon?

Technical aspects of forest management planning as decision-support have been addressed in numerous scientific studies. However, forest management plans (FMPs) also play a significant, but largely neglected, role as forest policy instruments. We have examined the policy context and planning practices in two contrasting case countries, revealing striking differences in policy instrumentation. In Sweden, FMPs mainly serve for informational steering, with under-utilised potential for providing individualised advice. In Lithuania, the plans are primarily regulatory, serving for effective control but with several deficiencies, notably excessive costs and institutionalised corruption. The study demonstrates that policy analyses can be fruitfully grounded in the empirics of planning practices

How sensitive are ecosystem services in European forest landscapes to silvicultural treatment?

While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Decision support tools and strategies to simulate forest landscape evolutions integrating forest owner behaviour: a review from the case studies of the European Project, INTEGRAL

For forest sustainability and vulnerability assessment, the landscape scale is considered to be more and more relevant as the stand level approaches its known limitations. This review, which describes the main forest landscape simulation tools used in the 20 European case studies of the European project “Future-oriented integrated management of European forest landscapes” (INTEGRAL), gives an update on existing decision support tools to run landscape simulation from Mediterranean to boreal ecosystems. The main growth models and software available in Europe are described, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches are discussed. Trades-offs between input efforts and output are illustrated. Recommendations for the selection of a forest landscape simulator are given. The paper concludes by describing the need to have tools that are able to cope with climate change and the need to build more robust indicators for assessment of forest landscape sustainability and vulnerability.The INTEGRAL project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 282887. http://www. integral-project.eu/. Moreover, financial support by the Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the 7th Framework Programme of the EC under the Trees4Future project (No. 284181) for conducting the research is gratefully acknowledged. This research has also received funding from the European Union H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 691149 (SuFoRun). Researcher Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo was supported by a “Ramon y Cajal” research contract from the MINECO (Ref. RYC-2013-14262) and has received funding from CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. This paper could be achieved thanks to support of EFIATLANTIC donors: Conseil regional d’Aquitaine, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la forêt

A matrix growth model of the Swedish forest

An area forest matrix model was developed, intended for use as a tool for modelling forest yield in an integrated forest sector model. The model was estimated from data from the Swedish National Forest Survey. Log-linear models are used in the estimation of transition probabilities. By comparison with another growth model, the matrix model generates reasonable growth levels and growth patterns. General characteristics of the model and the matrix concept are analyzed and discussed. In general the model is considered suitable for implementation in integrated forest sector modelling

An Area-Based Matrix Model for Uneven-Aged Forests

In this paper a new concept for modeling uneven-aged forests (UEAF) is presented. The term UEAF in this article encloses all forests that deviate from the even-aged structure. The matrix model is area-based, in that the forest under study is described by a distribution of areas over fixed state-spaces spanned by stem number and volume per hectare classes. Dynamics is introduced as transitions of areas inside the state-space during the simulation. Harvesting activities and the occurrence of calamities are explicitly handled. The model is designed to be suitable for large-scale analyses. The concept was tested in an application to Austrian National Forest Inventory (NFI) data. Results shown, including a comparison to older inventory data, indicate that it is worth further elaborating on the concept and the model. The work will be continued and in the next step the model concept will be applied in several other countries

Wood supply from Swedish forests managed according to the FSC-standard

In 1998, the Swedish standard for forest certification according to FSC's principles and criteria was approved (Anon. 1998). During a short period following this approval, all major forest companies in Sweden adopted the standard and modified their management practices. The overall aim of the standard is to outline management principles that maintain the ecosystem productivity and biodiversity, secure local people's livelihood, and promote long-term valuable wood­ production. In particular, the standard comprises many detailed regulations regarding how forests should be managed. For example, 5 percent of forest areas should be set aside for free development or be managed to promote biological values, certain areas must be managed to promote deciduous forests, boundary zones to streams, lakes, and non-productive land should be left, as should also a certain minimum number of trees (10 ha-1) during harvesting operations (Anon. 1998). Compared to management practices of most companies before adoption of the FSC standard, the new management regimes imply lower levels of potential harvests. Some analyses have been made to quantify the effects on the harvesting levels of the new management (e.g., Lundstrom et al. 1997, Anon. 2000). In these studies, the range of harvesting reduction due to the FSC standard has been found to be in the order 10 to 20 percent. Similar results are presented by V erkaik and Nabuurs (2000) in a study of the consequences of adopting "nature-orientated" management in Scandinavian forests. It should be noted that in the latter study no attempts were made to follow the FSC standard specifically. The long-term sustainable harvesting levels in Sweden, before the adoption of the FSC criteria, have been assessed to be slightly more than 100 mill. m3 per year (Anon. 2000). The annual cutting levels during the last decade have been about 70-75 mill. m3 per year. There are several reasons for the relatively large difference between the two figures. Firstly, many forests in Sweden are still comparably young, and thus not mature for final felling. Secondly, we are here dealing with different concepts. The level around 100 mill. m3 is what, from a biological point of view, would be possible to sustainably take out from the forests -it is reflecting a potential. In this calculation no considerations to restrictions of technical, social or economic kind are taken. The factual figure of 70-75 mill. m3 is reflecting the real supply of wood, given the economic setting and restrictions on forestry of different kinds. In most of the above studies of the effect of FSC' s standard on the harvesting levels, the modelling approach has been to let the management activities be controlled by a set of rules formulated to mimic certain forest management practices. These rules are followed, even if a deeper analysis (which is typically not made) for some forestry activities would imply negative results from an economical point of view. Together this implies that these studies are dealing with the "potential" discussed above. A different approach is to put forestry into an economical framework, letting the activities largely be controlled by economical considerations. The result of such an analysis most likely would be a different round-wood supply, leading to lower harvesting levels as compared to the levels that correspond to the biological potential. It can be argued that this kind of analysis in a better way would be able to assess the actual consequences on the harvesting levels of new demands on forestry, e.g. those caused by FSC certification. The objective of this study was to analyse the implications of the FSC standard on the supply of round-wood in Sweden. This is done with respect to both the effects on current supply relationships and the long-term harvest level. Two different assumptions about the rigor of the FSC-standard are analysed. These two scenarios are contrasted to a modified version of the environmental restrictions of the recent SKA study (Anon. 2000) which is used as a baseline case. The constraints are less restrictive than in the SKA study and are intended to reflect forest management under the current Forestry Act, though with no adherence to the particular stipulations of the FSC standard. Furthermore, an extreme case with no environmental considerations is included in order to assess the maximum economic potential. The different levels of environmental objectives form the basis for four scenarios. The scenarios differ with respect to the amount area that can be used for production and how much is allocated for modified management and into reserves. Except for the distribution of the forest area on permissible management, the economic and other conditions remain the same. The analysis was performed with a method for modelling the forest and the forest manager decisions developed by SaUnas and Eriksson (1989). The method derives economically optimal harvesting regimes for all types of forests given certain assumptions regarding prices and costs

Behavioral Modelling in a Decision Support System

Considering the variety of attitudes, objectives and behaviors characterizing forest owners is crucial for accurately assessing the impact of policy and market drivers on forest resources. A serious shortcoming of existing pan-European Decision Support Systems (DSS) is that they do not account for such heterogeneity, consequently disregarding the effects that this might have on timber supply and forest development. Linking a behavioral harvesting decision model—Expected Value Asymmetries (EVA)—to a forest resource dynamics model—European Forestry Dynamics Model (EFDM)—we provide an example of how forest owner specific characterization can be integrated in a DSS. The simulation results indicate that the approach holds promise as regards accounting for forest owner behavior in simulations of forest resources development. Hence, forest owner heterogeneity makes the distribution of forestland on owner types non-trivial, as it affects harvesting intensity and, subsequently, inter-temporal forest development

Explicating behavioral assumptions in forest scenario modelling – the behavioral matrix approach

Forest landscapes are too complex systems for the actors involved in policy making, including experts, to predict the consequences of different management options and policy measures without the aid of modelling tools. Forest sector models and forest management Decision Support Systems (DSS) are two major types of modelling tools that can be used for providing model-based support to forest policy development. Regardless of the modelling tool, policy makers and other concerned actors need to be aware of the behavioral assumptions, or implications, ofa scenario in orderto proceed to an assessment of what it takes toachieve, alternatively avoid it. A unified method or even a unified understanding of this problem is as yet lacking among forest scenario analysts. This paper presents an approach to facilitate the definition and communication of behavioral assumptions, primarily in DSS-based forest scenario modelling. At the core of the approach is the Behavioral Matrix (BM), a way of structuring forest management specifications. A case study in southern Sweden is presented as an example.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Adaptation of Forest Management Regimes in Southern Sweden to Increased Risks Associated with Climate Change

Even though the growth rates of most tree species in Sweden is expected to increase in the near future as a result of climate change, increased risks of damage by storms and various pests and pathogens, notably root rot and bark beetles, may also occur. Thus, forest management practices such as changes to thinning regimes, reductions in rotation lengths, and switching to other species (native or exotic) may represent adaptive management strategies to increase the resistance and resilience of Swedish forests to climate change. Clearly, thorough analyses examining the effects of anticipated climatic changes on damage levels, and the potentially relieving effects of possible management adaptations are needed before implementing such changes. In this study, damage caused by storms, root rot and bark beetles (single and in various combinations) under selected climate and management scenarios were simulated in Norway spruce (Pice abies L. Karst) stands. The results indicate that reductions in thinning intensity and rotation lengths could improve both volume production and profitability in southern Sweden. In addition, cultivation of rapidly growing species, such as hybrid larch (Larix × marschlinsii Coaz.) and hybrid aspen (Populus tremula L. × P. tremuloides Michx.), could be as profitable as Norway spruce cultivation, or even more profitable. However, slow-growing species, such as Silver birch (Betula pendula Roth), Downy birch (Betula pubescens Ehrh.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) indicated low economic output in terms of Land Expectation Value