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

5. It’s never black and white

6. Cutting out planted exotics

7. 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 Public domainPublic forest agencies

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

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-volume 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 owner’s duty to apply good forestry practice!

11. Multifunctionality

12. Göteborg Halt loss of biodiversity by 2010 Lisbon EU world’s most competitive economy EU Action Plan for Forests

13. EBRD Biodiversity Financing Facility

14. 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. Grasslands – Why there is a Biodiversity Problem

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. 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 Agri-environment: EU financial incentives

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. 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? Land abandonment = no farmersIntensive land use = farmers not interested

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 • heritage built up by past farmers and make the area unattractive for tourists; • inhabitants who feared that the new wetlands would lead to plagues of mosquitoes; • local opinion leaders who complained that two million euros was being spent to • create needless swamps while there was 30% unemployment in the district .

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

29. Multifunctionality

30. 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? Forests, grasslands, wetlands:typical intervention steps

31. Natura 2000 Lisbon No mega-fund No ring-fencing Integration Level playing field Cohesion policy TENs – Trans-European Networks BUT: demography! Lisbon versus Göteborg

32. Non-natural dynamics

33. Cultural paradigms

34. 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? CLIMATE CHANGE

35. The multifunctionality dilemma:Products 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