The �Living Forest� Project and Forest Conservation

Summary

The �Living Forest� agreement will be of great importance for the conservation of forest biodiversity if the goals of the agreement are reached. We question whether the means are adequate for reaching these goals. The new method (MIS) developed for mapping areas and elements (e.g. logs) important for the survival of red-listed species has several unfortunate properties. Forest engineers without sufficient competence in forest ecology will be responsible for recording important forest biotopes. Therefore, only «technical» and easily measurable variables are recorded. Recording threatened species or indicator species is not a part of the method and will not improve our generally poor knowledge of the distribution and biology of red-listed species. The method tends to lead to very small key biotopes (on average 0.67 ha), which leads to large edge effects and insufficient regeneration of dead wood. The �Living Forest� agreement focuses on restoration biotopes, but also this important field of forest management is omitted. Finally, the «Living Forest» standard does not mention problems with the introduction of alien new forest tree species in Western and Northern Norway. This process indisputably leads to massive changes in ecosystems and to the eradication of species and habitats, as considerable areas of diverse deciduous forests are transformed into monoculture spruce stands every year.