Metsiensuojelun tavoitteita 2000-luvun suomessa - BirdLife Suomi

Summary: A Forest Conservation Programme forFinland in the years 2003–2020by Keijo SavolaTo achieve an effective forest conservation area network, of importance is not only thequality and number of protected sites, but also the capacity of the landscape in between toallow species to move from one site to another. For this, in addition to traditional formsof conservation such as setting aside sites, new methods need to be developed as well asimprovements made to practices in commercial forests aimed at wildlife protection. Thescope of the procedures outlined here for years 2003–2020 are such that simultaneous improvementsare assumed and needed in all categories of forest use.A new protection programme for all forest typesDuring 2003–2010, the amount of additional strictly protected forest needed in Finland(mostly) S of Lapland is of the order 400 000 hectares. Achieving this would raise the percentageof strictly protected forest in the region covered by southern Finland, the WesternPart of Oulu Province, and South-West Lapland from the current 2,1 per cent to aroundfive. During 2011–2020 this would be further raised to at least ten per cent in every vegetationzone. A considerable majority of the enlargement of the forest protected area networkcan and should be carried out using state, municipal, industry-owned, and other majornon-private owners’ land. Restoration and management measures will be essential in manyareas.Less strictly protected sitesOne of the most important new forest protection measures proposed is the founding of anew forest management category lying between strictly protected and commercial forests.These Nature Value Forests would combine commercial interests with systematic protectionof biodiversity. The overall goal is to include five per cent of Finland’s forests in the NatureValue category by 2010, and 10 per cent by 2020.Maintaining larger expanses of forestCombining traditional strictly protected sites, Nature Value Forests and well-informed landuse planning (zoning) will make it possible to create larger forest expanses of over 50 squarekilometres. The main aim should be to protect such regions from development disruptive offorest cover, such as building projects. A study by the Finnish Ministry of the Environmentis needed to identify larger expanses of public and industrially owned forest suited to suchuse.Increasing the biodiversity value of recreational forest areasMost forest recreation areas and forest parks (V, VR, and VL zones on Finnish municipalplanning permission maps), even on national property, are managed as ordinary commercialforests. Management plans are needed for the larger recreational forests, with clear targetsfor conservation as well as forestry.68