Small-scale private forest owners and the European Natura 2000 conservation network: perceived ecosystem services, management practices, and nature conservation attitudes

Abstract

The systematic designation of protected areas is a key strategy in modern biodiversity conservation. As for now, the Natura 2000 system of the European Union (EU) is the largest coordinated network of conservation areas worldwide. Since this scheme has a focus on forests, its effectiveness substantially depends on small-scale private forest owners who represent the largest forest ownership group in Europe. We conducted a quantitative survey (n = 1671) in Northwest Germany focusing on the perceived importance of ecosystem services, the performance of management practices, nature conservation attitudes, as well as stand characteristics of small-scale private forest owners with and without Natura 2000 sites. Forest owners perceived regulating and cultural services as more important than provisioning ecosystem services while having a multifunctional perspective on their forest. Owners with Natura 2000 sites had a stronger focus on resource use and, with the exception of habitat-tree protection, did not perform conservation measures more frequently than those without. Moreover, we found more negative nature conservation attitudes among this ownership group. In conclusion, the Natura 2000 scheme needs to be more strongly adapted to the demands of small-scale private forest owners, for example by increasing profound participation and establishing a results-based incentive scheme for conservation measures. The perspectives of small-scale private forest owners have to be considered comprehensively to ensure the effective and sustainable implementation of the Natura 2000 conservation network.

Owner attitudes and landscape parameters drive stand structure and valuable habitats in small-scale private forests of Lower Saxony (Germany)

“…To obtain insights into the attitudes of SPF owners in the study area, we used data from a quantitative mail survey that was conducted among the members of three local private forest owner associations. We sent out questionnaires by post to all 4,204 members of these associations, and 1,671 persons (39.8%) returned usable answers by mail or online (Tiebel et al, 2021). For the present work, we recontacted those participants who had provided their contact details.…”

“…Owner goals concerning their forests were queried in the questionnaire with a list of 16 possible goals, with the possibility to rate their respective in uence on a ve-point Likert scale (details given in section A1 in the appendix). These goals were then categorized into four types (Tiebel et al, 2021), namely goals referring to the promotion of certain ecosystem services (regulating, cultural and provisioning), and purely nancial goals (Table 1). For each goal type consisting of several sub-goals, a value of agreement between 0 and 1 was calculated.…”

“…A substantial group of SPF owners is strongly interested in nature and cultural heritage conservation (Weiss et al, 2019). Likewise, the management activities of SPF owners are diverse and may comprise a wide range from industrialized wood harvesting, logging by horses, manually extracting single small stems as rewood for personal consumption, or even ceasing all felling activities for the sake of nature conservation, or due to lack of interest or long distances to their property (Bieling, 2004;Tiebel et al, 2021;Weiss et al, 2019).…”

Closer-to-Nature Forest Management

“…silvicultural systems that are used) or whether the harvesting protocols or patterns of mortality due to disturbances conform to the assumptions built into predictions of forest development over time (Mason et al 2021;Schelhaas et al 2018). This deficiency tends to be most acute for private forests which comprise about 60% of European forests with nearly 16 million forest owners and whose perspectives have been comparatively little studied, especially for small scale owners (Tiebel et al 2021). Thus, although the desirability of management plans for private forests is widely promoted (Forest Europe 2020), the information contained in such plans seems often to be poorly collated.…”

Management and Mapping Ecosystem Services in a Privately Owned Natura 2000 Site: An Insight into the Stellantis–La Mandria Site (Italy)

“…Studies about the private-owned areas are still scarce, mainly concentrated in northern and eastern European areas and focused on the compensation mechanism within the European Rural Development Programmes [13,14] and private investment and protection activities in Natura 2000 sites [15]. A few studies focus on the involvement of experts and stakeholders on the perception of ecosystem services and the need to share management practices [16,17].…”