Maintaining natural and traditional cultural green infrastructures across Europe: learning from historic and current landscape transformations

Abstract

Context Maintaining functional green infrastructures (GIs) require evidence-based knowledge about historic and current states and trends of representative land cover types. Objectives We address: (1) the long-term loss and transformation of potential natural forest vegetation; (2) the effects of site productivity on permanent forest loss and emergence of traditional cultural landscapes; (3) the current management intensity; and (4) the social-ecological contexts conducive to GI maintenance . Methods We selected 16 case study regions, each with a local hotspot landscape, ranging from intact forest landscapes, via contiguous and fragmented forest covers, to severe forest loss. Quantitative open access data were used to estimate (i) the historic change and (ii) transformation of land covers, and (iii) compare the forest canopy loss from 2000 to 2018. Qualitative narratives about each hotspot landscape were analysed for similarities (iv). Results While the potential natural forest vegetation cover in the 16 case study regions had a mean of 86%, historically it has been reduced to 34%. Higher site productivity coincided with transformation to non-forest land covers. The mean annual forest canopy loss for 2000–2018 ranged from 0.01 to 1.08%. The 16 case studies represented five distinct social-ecological contexts (1) radical transformation of landscapes, (2) abuse of protected area concepts, (3) ancient cultural landscapes (4) multi-functional forests, and (5) intensive even-aged forest management, of which 1 and 4 was most common. Conclusions GIs encompass both forest naturalness and traditional cultural landscapes. Our review of Pan-European regions and landscapes revealed similarities in seemingly different contexts, which can support knowledge production and learning about how to sustain GIs.

Natural Disturbance-Based Forest Management: Moving Beyond Retention and Continuous-Cover Forestry

“…In practical forest planning and management, the natural disturbance-based management approach can be grounded on knowledge and assumptions of species and ecosystem adaptations to local and/or temporal environmental changes (Stokland et al, 2012;Angelstam et al, 2021b). It is an ecosystem approach that focuses holistically on restoring and maintaining near-to-natural dynamics in managed forests by mimicking natural disturbances with forest harvesting (Figure 3).…”

“…Secondly, even if natural reference systems still exist, their natural or historical disturbance regimes may be poorly known (Kneeshaw et al, 2011;Angelstam et al, 2021b). This applies, for example, for regions such as eastern Eurasia (Siberia), Russian Far-East and western Canada.…”

“…These ecosystems may have departed from their natural range of variation a long time ago (Keane et al, 2006). Because of this, in many human-altered regions the natural disturbancebased management approach may not be easily applicable (e.g., Maeshiro et al, 2013), at least not without a lengthy period of ecological restoration (Angelstam et al, 2021b).…”

Assessment and Spatial Planning for Peatland Conservation and Restoration: Europe’s Trans-Border Neman River Basin as a Case Study

“…While the former requires protected area networks that allow natural disturbances, the latter requires maintenance of traditional multifunctional agricultural systems. This means that both historic permanent loss of peatlands as potential natural vegetation, and current transition trajectories in both ecological and social systems need to be understood [140,141]. However, trans-boundary collaboration both in terms of planning and management practices is not coherent because legislation and spatial planning are not effectively linked among countries [138].…”

The importance of traditional agricultural landscapes for preventing species extinctions

“…Such landscapes may comprise a variety of habitats and ecological conditions suitable for many species (e.g. Eriksson et al 2002;Emanuelsson 2009;Tscharntke et al 2012;Berglund et al 2014;Plieninger et al 2015;Tieskens et al 2017;Angelstam et al 2020). Although the importance of anthropogenic landscapes for current biodiversity has been acknowledged in many studies, a common feature of these studies is that they remark that this issue either has been neglected (e.g.…”