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I. Löfström et al. 2010. Biodiversity and recreational values in urban participatory forest planning in Finland
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Biodiversity and recreational values in urban participatory forest
planning in Finland
Irja Löfström 1* , Mikko Kurttila 2 , Leena Hamberg 1 & Laura Nieminen 1
1
Finnish Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box 18, FIN-01301, Vantaa, Finland
2
Finnish Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box 68, FIN-80101, Joensuu, Finland
Abstract
In Finland most of the urban green areas are forests with indigenous understorey vegetation.
Urban forests are often located near residential areas, and they are actively used for outdoor
recreation. Municipalities own most of these forests in Finland. The aim of this study was to
gain overall picture and to discover the main development needs of planning and managing
municipality owned urban forest.
Most of the municipalities have inventoried the biodiversity of their forests, and used lighter
management methods than for commercial forests. Participatory planning has been commonly
used for taking forest users’ opinions into account and for integrating multiple values. Multifunctional
forest planning, multi-criteria decision analysis and advanced decision-support tools
are still rather new approaches in the field of urban forestry. However, these modern methods
could be useful for integrating multiple values into planning process and thus to improve the
quality of urban forest planning.
Keywords: municipally owned urban forest, participatory planning, biodiversity, recreation
1. Introduction
In Finland about 80 % of urban green areas are forests. According to Finnish law, citizens are
allowed to use forests for recreation freely, and therefore outdoor recreation is common
particularly in forests that are located near residential areas. In this article we define urban
forests as forests with indigenous understorey vegetation. Thus, they do not include gardens,
parks and street trees.
Urban forestry has been defined on an European level as “planning, design, establishment and
management of trees and forest stands with amenity values, situated in or near urban areas”
(Forrest et al. 1999). In fact, urban forests provide multiple values for inhabitants. Therefore
recreation, aesthetics and biodiversity have to be taken seriously into consideration when
planning and managing these forests.
Municipalities own most of the urban forests in Finland. Participatory planning has been used
for urban forest planning in municipalities since 1990’s (Löfström 1990, 1996, 2001). The
purpose of the participatory planning is to gather information, wishes and preferences from local
inhabitants and other users of urban forests to different planning processes that concern the
future use of these forests. In its best, this kind of approach gives people an actual opportunity
to influence the way the urban forests are managed in their surroundings. Participatory planning
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 50 391 2418 - Fax: +358 50 391 2202
Email address: irja.lofstrom@metla.fi
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.