Forests,grasslands, wetlands EU 15 experience Prospects

1
Forests,grasslands, wetlandsEU 15
experienceProspects

• CEEWEB Academy
• Anton Gazenbeek

2
Natura 2000 and forests Challenges and
opportunities. Interpretation guide,
Commission DG Environment Nature and
Biodiversity Unit, 2003.

• No intention to block all economic activities in
  Natura 2000 sites
• BUT the economic function of forests will often
  have to be adapted according to the conservation
  requirements of the Natura 2000 sites.
• If the forestry practices being applied at
  designation have helped to create or maintain a
  forest with a structure and species composition
  in line with Natura 2000 objectives and do not
  lead to a decline in the conservation status of
  the habitats and species for which the site was
  designated, they can be continued.
• If the forestry practices being applied at
  designation are contrary to the conservation
  objectives for which the site was designated and
  do lead to a deterioration of Natura 2000
  habitats and species, then nature conservation
  objectives must have priority over the economic
  use and forestry management will have to be
  adapted.
• Specific values for the dimensions of clearings,
  the timing of interventions, the quantification
  of tree harvesting levels etc can not be given at
  an EU level these depend on management
  objectives and measures which have to be
  negotiated on a local level between the
  responsible Natura 2000 site managers and the
  forestry operators.

3
Giving woods back to nature

• Dürrenstein Totally out of bounds
• Große Arber Kalkalpen Bark beetles and ring
  barking
• Kuusamo Accommodating locals by using part of
  wood for nature tourism

4
Traditional woodmanship (England, in Rackham,
The History of the Countryside)

• Variety of deciduous tree species, conifers rare
• Underwood
• Tall (timber) trees

• cut in a rotation system for firewood and small
  wood
• creating adjacent stages running from open areas
  (ideal for flowering herbs) through young stands
  to taller shadier wood.
• left to grow to maturity and then felled
  selectively.

5
Its never black and white
6
Cutting out planted exotics
7
Public domainPublic forest agencies

• F ONF
• UK Forestry Commission
• FIN Metsahallitus
• D, A Bundes/Landesforstverwaltung
• NL SBB
• etc
• Funded from public budget sheltered from market

• Generational and cultural shift
• Failure of intensive forestry schemes
• Cost cutting
• Instructions from above

8
Private forestsCorporations and citizens

• FINLAND
• Total forest cover 24,100,000 ha
• UPM Kymmene company owns 870,000 ha
• 14,000,000 ha owned by 400,000 private
  individuals average holding 35 ha
• Restrictions state must buy. Expropriation!

9
Sylvi-Environment In FranceUsing RDP (Art. 30,
32 Reg. 1257/99)

• Financial support available for restoration
• restoring riverine woodland, including work to
  stabilise riverbanks
• clearing and thinning stands to benefit habitats
  or species on the Directives
• natural regeneration in stands with low
  productivity where normal forest practice would
  be for planting
• fencing patches of natural regeneration to create
  mosaic-like horizontal forest structure
• planting to restore Annex I habitats
• establishing complex, multi-storey and gradual
  forest edges
• creating new clearings in forests, or restoring
  old overgrown ones
• digging or restoring ponds in forests
• building crossings of small streams in forests to
  stop forestry machines destroying Annex Ii
  species habitats
•  
•  

• Compensation payments available to
• cover the loss of expected monetary value and
  reduced technical exploitability which results
  when the heterogeneity of stands is increased to
  restore habitats or species of Community interest
  ( going from monoculture to mixed)
• cover the additional costs connected with manual
  clearing or undergrowth thinning for the benefit
  of Natura 2000 values, where existing forest
  policy or practice would have led to using
  mechanical or chemical means.

10
Besides providing funds for the restoration and
contractual management of Natura 2000 forests,
the French authorities have focused on providing
information and training to stakeholders   Two-vo
lume guide for the identification and integrated
management of forest habitats and species
(Gestion des forêts et diversité biologique).
The guide helps forest owners identify habitats
and species found in their woods and find out
what to do, thanks to a vast range of
descriptions of practical situations. French
private forest owners association cooperated in
the compilation of the guides. Technical
reference manuals for the Annex I habitat types
and Annex II species occurring in France. Each
forest habitat is listed under its French name
with the Natura 2000 and CORINE codes. This is
followed by scientific descriptions, succession
stages, associated habitats, conservation value,
potential threats, production capacities and
economic use, management practices and research
needs. The value of these manuals lies in their
holistic approach, which presents forest managers
with a systematic linking of conservation-related
data, management practices and economic use.
Practical guidebook covering all investment
subsidies and compensatory payments available for
forest operators in Natura 2000 sites in France,
with explanations about administrative
procedures, conditions of eligibility,
calculation of payments, technical measures and
habitats covered etc. Very important in this
guidebook is a definition of good forestry
practices only what goes beyond good forestry
practice can be compensated by national or EU
subsidies, as it is a responsible forest owners
duty to apply good forestry practice!
11
Multifunctionality
12
EU Action Plan for Forests

• Göteborg
• Halt loss of biodiversity by 2010

• Lisbon
• EU worlds most competitive economy

13
EBRD Biodiversity Financing Facility
14
Grasslands Why there is a Biodiversity Problem

• Wild grasses, no ploughing
• Animals grazing outdoors
• Hay from meadows
• Low productivity per unit.

• Ploughing, sown grasses designed by seed
  companies
• Livestock penned in stables year-round and food
  brought to them
• High-protein fodder silage from sown grasses,
  maize from ploughed-up former grassland, waste
  from the margarine and oils industry, imported
  materials like soy ( concentration of intensive
  livestock near seaports!)
• Cows producing over 10,000 litres milk per annum.
  Less land needed to produce as much as before, or
  even more.

15

• Restoration and recurring management of
  grasslands
• Restoration of former grasslands
• cutting and clearing away overgrowth on abandoned
  grassland ( seed bank can regenerate
  seeding with hay from existing species-rich
  grasslands)
• removing nutrients from land converted to silage
  grass, maize or arable field ( scraping off
  topsoil a regime of repeated mowing and export
  of biomass)
• Recurring management
• After restoration, getting farmers to use the
  grassland in an ecologically appropriate manner.
• Voluntary farmer self-commitment, seize
  opportunity (Lafnitz, Austria)
• Incentive purchase and make available at zero
  rent, in return farmers must commit to mowing or
  grazing it according to the instructions of the
  owner (northwest Germany. Locally high land
  rents!).
• Incentive hire farmers as contractors,
  kick-start demand for product (Alpine foreland
  Chiemgau, Vorarlberg, Weidmoos)

16
Agri-environment EU financial incentives

• 5 year contracts to use grasslands in ways which
  benefit biodiversity
• no inputs/ploughing
• late mowing
• low stocking density
• grazing at certain times
• accepting seasonal flooding

• Since 1992 part of the CAP second pillar,
  financed through the Rural Development Programme
  (RDP) and its Regulations

17
Budgetary DisciplineWhere the Blows Fell
18
Using the new RDP (2007-13)

• Its success in maintaining or reviving
  biodiversity-friendly land uses depends inter
  alia on
• are there suitable agri-environment programmes?
  if none of them propose contracts for the kind of
  land use needed to support a specific
  biodiversity target, nothing can be achieved. For
  the content of the programmes, conservation
  authorities and NGOs depend on other
  (agriculture!) authorities.
• are the contracts offered to farmers attractive
  enough? I.e. are the premia high enough to make
  it economically worthwhile? How much paperwork is
  involved in applying for premia and how much
  inflexibility and inspection/penalties in
  carrying out a contract? If it is too excessive
  nobody will want to apply!
• Perverse effects. Farmers can get high
  agri-environment premia (up to 450/ha) but if
  the land rent is raised by the landowner, there
  is no real gain.

19
Economic incentives
20
Land abandonment no farmersIntensive land use
farmers not interested

• Do-it yourself (DIY)
• Self-regulating management

• Own staff machines
• Hired contractors
• Volunteer work camps
• Half-wild or wild grazers (Netherlands
  Gelderse Poort, Oostvaardersplassen) Practical
  application of the megaherbivore theory?

21
Wetland degradation

• Linked to human intervention in water
• lowering water levels
• eliminating natural flooding dynamics
• polluting water.
• Drainage of wetlands
• to create new opportunities for farming,
  afforestation and building
• Peat bogs
• Traditional cutting peat for fuel
• Modern peat for gardening and horticulture

22
Wetland restoration examples taken from projects

• A lake and its surrounding reedbeds are suffering
  from low water levels. A simple dam across the
  point where water flows out of the lake raises
  the water level and the reeds recover
• Ditches are bringing eutrophic water from
  farmland into a mire. A new ditch collecting
  this water and diverting it away from the mire
  stops the eutrophication process
• Old drainage ditches are desiccating a bog.
  Solution block with dams, or even fill in, the
  ditches
• A lake is terrestrialising too rapidly because of
  accumulated silt. Dredge the silt and, providing
  the flow of nutrients into the lake has also been
  dealt with, the lake should get a new lease of
  life.

23
Cyclical managementWieden-Weerribben (NL)
24
Technical durability
25
Social Feasibility

• Potential for opposition
• Objectively affected
• Cultural/esthetic differences (paradigms)
• Disunity own goal
• Irrational blinkmanship

26
Social feasibility a sample of real-life
objections from the community.

• A LIFE project in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
  (Germany) had as its objectives
• closing off a canalised river and re-opening its
  old meandering bed, which was now merely a line
  of trees and depressions in the landscape
• putting a dam across the outflow of a lake to
  raise water levels and expand the surface of the
  lake
• raise groundwater levels across several hundred
  hectare of fen to halt peat mineralization and
  restore natural fenland conditions

27

• It faced objections from
• farmers, who did not want to lose land they were
  using as this threatened their
• holdings and meant loss of CAP premia based on
  farmed surface area
• two rich outsiders who were buying land in the
  project area in order to establish
• private hunting districts of their own
• inhabitants of a small settlement who feared that
  higher groundwater levels
• would flood their cellars
• inhabitants of another settlement who feared that
  damming the lake outflow and
• raising lake levels would mean water in the creek
  flowing through their settlement
• would back up and flood low-lying gardens
• the fisherman who caught eels in the lake outflow
  the dam would make eel
• fishing impossible and ruin his livelihood
• the local water authority which simply did not
  believe that the river restoration and
• higher groundwater levels were technically
  possible and produced counterarguments
• inhabitants in the district who objected to
  hundreds of trees being cut down
• to re-open the old meandering riverbed
• the tourist board which considered that turning
  the current attractive landscape of
• fields, pastures and woods into a wilderness of
  swamps would destroy the cultural

28
Pre-empting conflict?Hampshire New Forest (UK)

• Constitution of a forum uniting the most
  important authorities
• Public information and consultation
• Pilot project to show restoration in practice,
  before starting on the main works
• Impact assessment studies will be done
• Continuous feedback to ecosystem

• With particular attention to possible impacts of
  the restoration (flooding downstream, effect on
  fishing)
• located at a spot with high visibility, so that
  local inhabitants aware of what is being done
• to address local concerns about the consequences
  of restoration
• Whatever ecological engineering technique is
  proposed, it will be beneficial for some habitats
  and species but maybe detrimental for others.
  This must be investigated and choices made

29
Multifunctionality
30
Forests, grasslands, wetlandstypical
intervention steps

• Planning
• Land/rights acquisition
• Restoration
• Recurring (active) management

• Management plans, technical plans.
• Targets, feasibility, cost-benefit, action
  ranking
• For passive/active management
• Technical durability
• Nature creation!
• Economic durability?

31
Lisbon versus Göteborg

• Natura 2000
• Lisbon

• No mega-fund
• No ring-fencing
• Integration
• Level playing field
• Cohesion policy
• TENs Trans-European Networks
• BUT demography!

32
Non-natural dynamics
33
Cultural paradigms
34
CLIMATE CHANGE

• THREAT
• Northward shift biogeographic zones
• Interconnectivity problem
• Wetland spreading
• Biofuels, bioenergy biorefineries new
  monocultures

• OPPORTUNITY
• Active management supported by
• Wood biomass for bioenergy
• Grass/reed biomass for biofuel
• Both for biorefineries?

35
The multifunctionality dilemmaProducts for
market, services for society

• DEFRA Vision Europe June 2006
• A set of proposals for EU agriculture
• Internationally competitive without subsidies
• Market rewards farmers for output, taxpayers only
  pay for societal benefits
• Agriculture is environmentally sensitive
  enhancing and maintaining landscape
• Agriculture is socially responsive to changing
  needs of rural communities and animal
  health/welfare
• Non-distorting to international trade