Information Needs for Biodiversity Assessment Derived from International Forestry Discussions

Abstract

International agreements, initiatives for developing criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management and the public discussion on certification commit all countries to preserve biodiversity and to develop a more balanced management of forest environment. To achieve these goals, most representative natural forests have been totally protected and production forests managed with more nature oriented principles. According to the historical forest use, human impact, forest ownership structure and natural forest development cycle, different forestry practices can be distinguished.

Research on stand level biodiversity aims at developing silvicultural guidelines. Studies on stand structure and dynamic processes play a key role in the description of biodiversity indicators. Further research on stand level is needed in defining the key indicators/parameters for biodiversity with standards (e.g. dead wood component), differences in biodiversity indicators between natural forests and managed forests (naturalness of forests), influence of disturbances on biodiversity indicators, and economic comparisons between biodiversity oriented and wood production oriented silviculture.

At landscape level the most urgent need is to develop forest inventory methods and to monitor the forest ecosystem as a whole. This requires an efficient use of GIS and other techniques to visualise the different forest protection and management units. The forest ecosystem inventory should include, in addition to the traditional forest stand characteristics, assessment of the protection areas (representativeness, geographical location, site classes, age structure, size), location of forest areas with regard to other land use alternatives, key biotopes and other protective zones and watershed management areas. Further development is also needed in the definitions of terms (e.g. forest protection classes, origin of forests) and in the harmonisation of classifications.