Post-Socialist Forest Disturbance in the Carpathian Border Region of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine

Abstract

Forests provide important ecosystem services, and protected areas around the world are intended to reduce human disturbance on forests. The question is how forest cover is changing in different parts of the world, why some areas are more frequently disturbed, and if protected areas are effective in limiting anthropogenic forest disturbance. The Carpathians are Eastern Europe's largest contiguous forest ecosystem and are a hotspot of biodiversity. Eastern Europe has undergone dramatic changes in political and socioeconomic structures since 1990, when socialistic state economies transitioned toward market economies. However, the effects of the political and economic transition on Carpathian forests remain largely unknown. Our goals were to compare post-socialist forest disturbance and to assess the effectiveness of protected areas in the border triangle of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, to better understand the role of broadscale political and socioeconomic factors. Forest disturbances were assessed using the forest disturbance index derived from Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+ images from 1978 to 2000. Our results showed increased harvesting in all three countries (up to 1.8 times) in 1988-1994, right after the system change. Forest disturbance rates differed markedly among countries (disturbance rates in Ukraine were 4.5 times higher than in Poland, and those in Slovakia were 4.3 times higher than in Poland), and in Ukraine, harvests tended to occur at higher elevations. Forest fragmentation increased in all three countries but experienced a stronger increase in Slovakia and Ukraine (approximately 5% decrease in core forest) than in Poland. Protected areas were most effective in Poland and in Slovakia, where harvesting rates dropped markedly (by nearly an order of magnitude in Slovakia) after protected areas were designated. In Ukraine, harvesting rates inside and outside protected areas did not differ appreciably, and harvests were widespread immediately before the designation of protected areas. In summary, the socioeconomic changes in Eastern Europe that occurred since 1990 had strong effects on forest disturbance. Differences in disturbance rates among countries appear to be most closely related to broadscale socioeconomic conditions, forest management practices, forest policies, and the strength of institutions. We suggest that such factors may be equally important in other regions of the world.

Drivers of grassland loss in Hungary during the post-socialist transformation (1987–1999)

“…Dominant land cover changes in Eastern and East-Central Europe in the 1985-2000 period were farmland abandonment, afforestation, forest overutilisation and in some areas cropland expansion (Bičík et al 2001;Palang 2006;Kuemmerle et al 2007Kuemmerle et al , 2008Łowicki 2008;Lakes et al 2009;15 Main-Knorn et al 2009;Feranec et al 2010;Hatna and Bakker 2011;Baumann et al 2011), while in Western Europe urbanization, afforestation and in many areas farmland abandonment (Hietel et al 2005;Falcucci et al 2007;Feranec et al 2007Feranec et al , 2010Schneeberger et al 2007a,b;Hersperger et al 2009;Gimmi et al 2011;Monteiro et al 2011). We argue, that any unusual processes (e.g.…”

“…Most landscape change studies in this region focus on changes in forestry practices, forest cover and pattern changes and were mainly performed in the Carpathians, where deforestation, forest and bush encroachment, and changing tree composition were found to be the most common changes (Kuemmerle et al 2007;Main-Knorn 2009). On the other hand, 15 farmland abandonment is also of major concern in many areas (Bičík et al 2001;Lakes et al 2009;Baumann et al 2011;Hatna and Bakker 2011).…”

Historical and contemporary forest ecosystem changes in the Beskid Mountains (southern Poland) between 1848 and 2014

“…Furthermore, increased acquisition of land for residential building and crops caused a reduction in the area for pasture. Additionally, the outflow of people towards the growing industrial centers and high market competition for sheep products contributed to the abandonment of pasture management in the higher parts of the mountains (Gerard et al 2006, Kuemmerle et al 2007. As a consequence, clearings and pastures were overgrown with forest and their size decreased.…”

The Impact of Changes in Species Richness and Species Replacement on Patterns of Taxonomic Homogenization in the Carpathian Forest Ecosystems

“…In the Polish part of the Eastern Carpathians, these drivers were most likely related to the decrease in the intensity of forest use and forest aging [50][51][52], which resulted in a lower level of disturbances as well as an increase in the density of the canopy and the volume of the forest stand [28,53,54]. These factors most likely contributed towards higher habitat stability, which led to the decrease in species diversity.…”

“…This was mainly achieved by substituting the uniform shelterwood system (the main management system since WWII) with the irregular shelterwood system. Additionally, in the mid-20th century, the common practice of traditional non-timber forest use by the locals, such as firewood and litter raking or wood pasture, disappeared [27,28]. A part of the forests in the WBM area came under protection in 1973 and now it constitutes the Bieszczady National Park.…”