The contribution of small protected areas to the big picture of forest conservation and restoration in Sweden

Abstract

In forest regions worldwide, industrial forestry has left fragments of natural forests behind. This challenges biodiversity conservation and calls for ecological restoration for sustainable forest management and conservation. The functionality of protected areas need to be improved and forest ecosystems set in a state that better favors biodiversity, resilience and provisioning of ecosystem services. Sweden contributes a substantial share of the European forests, with dominance of non-industrial forest ownership and extensive forestry footprint, and hence with immediate need for advanced conservation and restoration. Protection through voluntary nature conservation agreements and regulated biotope protection areas exists since the 1990s, with schemes involving economic compensation to landowners to facilitate conservation and restoration. Across entire Sweden and all ecoregions, we assessed their accumulated capacity over a 30-year period, including forest types protected, type of restoration management, rotation intervals, and selection of tree species. These nearly 14,000 different areas covering over 70,000ha are small, ranging in size from 5ha but rarely larger than 20ha. Their contribution is important, particularly in south Sweden with low and fragmented forest cover among many different owners. Active restoration dominates over passive set asides, coniferous forest types are less represented than more rare forest types, many different tree species are favored, and different restoration types occur but with few types dominating. In recognizing their critical importance, we find that the practices are narrow and repetitive, and that a greater restoration diversification is needed. The decreasing trend in protection is alarming since these contribute key forest type representativeness and functionality.