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P. Angelstam & M. Elbakidze. 2010. Sustainable forest management, multi-stakeholder governance and spatial planning
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Sustainable forest management requires multi-stakeholder governance
and spatial planning: Kovdozersky state forest management unit in
northwest Russia
Per Angelstam * and Marine Elbakidze
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Forest Sciences,
School for Forest Engineers, PO Box 43, SE-739 21 Skinnskatteberg, Sweden
Abstract
Large-scale clear-felling of naturally dynamic forests during the Soviet period has left many
remote forest landscapes in the Russian Federation with limited wood resources for decades to
come. Ideas about rural development based on forest non-wood goods, ecosystem services as
well as natural and cultural landscape values are thus emerging. To understand stakeholders’
needs for regional development based on both use and non-use values of forest landscapes we
interviewed 31 stakeholders from private, public and civil sectors in the Kovdozersky state
forest management unit in southernmost Murmansk oblast. While about half of the stakeholders
were confined to the Kovdozersky forest management unit (~500,000 ha), the spatial scales of
stakeholder activities ranged from local villages to the entire catchment of Kovda River in the
Russian Federation and Finland (~2,600,000 ha). To avoid future negative externalities and
risks for conflicts there is a need to (1) communicate the state and trends about sustainability
dimensions of forest landscapes at multiple levels, (2) encourage collaborative learning
processes about natural resource management based on principles of adaptive governance and
adaptive management, and (3) plan at multiple spatial scales to satisfy and reconcile the needs
and interests of different landscape stakeholders. The development of traditional and new
products from forest landscape’s goods, ecosystem services and values, and of local and
regional forest governance requires exchange of experiences with development initiatives
toward an integrated landscape approach in other regions and countries.
Keywords: spatial planning, natural resource governance, rural development, boreal forest
1. Introduction
The circumboreal boreal forest ecoregion is an important provider of natural resources in terms
of wood, minerals and hydroelectric energy supporting human welfare and quality of life. Being
relatively little impacted by anthropogenic change, there is opportunity for biodiversity
conservation including viable populations, ecological integrity and resilience (Angelstam et al.
2004). Northern forest ecosystem also form a biomass sink (Myneni et al. 2001).
According to international and national policy documents sustainable forest management (SFM)
aims at satisfying economic, ecological and socio-cultural values, and should be based on the
principles of sustainable development as good governance including representation of actors
and stakeholders (Lammerts van Buren and Blom 1997; Mayers and Bass 2004). The effects of
multi-level external factors from local and regional to national and global levels that affect
ecosystems, including climate change, and social systems, need to be understood (Angelstam et
al. 2005). Finally, the actors, stakeholders and organisations exercising government and
governance need to be well informed to connect forests and markets.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 (0)70-2444971 e-mail: per.angelstam@smsk.slu.se
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.