Regulatory Intensity on Private Forestland and its Relationship with State Characteristics in the United States.

Though the federal government impacts private forest management across the United States through legislation such as the Clean Water Act, state-level regulations applied to private forest landowners vary remarkably. Despite this diversity of policies, little is known about how variations in regulatory intensity (defined here as number of forestry regulations) correlate with state-level political and socioeconomic characteristics. In this study, we use a quantitative approach to explore the intensity of regulation on forest practices impacting private landowners across all 50 states. We quantified intensity by tabulating the number of regulated forest practices, then used a quasi-Poisson regression to estimate the relationship between regulatory intensity and state-level characteristics, including forestland ownership types, the economic importance of the forest industry, and measures of state environmentalism. Results indicated a positive association between regulatory intensity and the percent of private corporate land, environmental voting records of elected officials, and direct democracy. Foresters and landowners may learn from these relationships, consider how to influence different policies, and build or achieve greater levels of public trust. This study starts to help us explain why state-level forestry policies differ, not just how they differ.

Active afforestation of drained peatlands is not a viable option under the EU Nature Restoration Law.

The EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) is critical for the restoration of degraded ecosystems and active afforestation of degraded peatlands has been suggested as a restoration measure under the NRL. Here, we discuss the current state of scientific evidence on the climate mitigation effects of peatlands under forestry. Afforestation of drained peatlands without restoring their hydrology does not fully restore ecosystem functions. Evidence on long-term climate benefits is lacking and it is unclear whether CO2 sequestration of forest on drained peatland can offset the carbon loss from the peat over the long-term. While afforestation may offer short-term gains in certain cases, it compromises the sustainability of peatland carbon storage. Thus, active afforestation of drained peatlands is not a viable option for climate mitigation under the EU Nature Restoration Law and might even impede future rewetting/restoration efforts. Instead, restoring hydrological conditions through rewetting is crucial for effective peatland restoration.

FSC-certified forest management benefits large mammals compared to non-FSC.

More than a quarter of the world's tropical forests are exploited for timber1. Logging impacts biodiversity in these ecosystems, primarily through the creation of forest roads that facilitate hunting for wildlife over extensive areas. Forest management certification schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are expected to mitigate impacts on biodiversity, but so far very little is known about the effectiveness of FSC certification because of research design challenges, predominantly limited sample sizes2,3. Here we provide this evidence by using 1.3 million camera-trap photos of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa. We observed higher mammal encounter rates in FSC-certified than in non-FSC logging concessions. The effect was most pronounced for species weighing more than 10 kg and for species of high conservation priority such as the critically endangered forest elephant and western lowland gorilla. Across the whole mammal community, non-FSC concessions contained proportionally more rodents and other small species than did FSC-certified concessions. The first priority for species protection should be to maintain unlogged forests with effective law enforcement, but for logged forests our findings provide convincing data that FSC-certified forest management is less damaging to the mammal community than is non-FSC forest management. This study provides strong evidence that FSC-certified forest management or equivalently stringent requirements and controlling mechanisms should become the norm for timber extraction to avoid half-empty forests dominated by rodents and other small species.

Landscape-scale benefits of protected areas for tropical biodiversity.

The United Nations recently agreed to major expansions of global protected areas (PAs) to slow biodiversity declines1. However, although reserves often reduce habitat loss, their efficacy at preserving animal diversity and their influence on biodiversity in surrounding unprotected areas remain unclear2-5. Unregulated hunting can empty PAs of large animals6, illegal tree felling can degrade habitat quality7, and parks can simply displace disturbances such as logging and hunting to unprotected areas of the landscape8 (a phenomenon called leakage). Alternatively, well-functioning PAs could enhance animal diversity within reserves as well as in nearby unprotected sites9 (an effect called spillover). Here we test whether PAs across mega-diverse Southeast Asia contribute to vertebrate conservation inside and outside their boundaries. Reserves increased all facets of bird diversity. Large reserves were also associated with substantially enhanced mammal diversity in the adjacent unprotected landscape. Rather than PAs generating leakage that deteriorated ecological conditions elsewhere, our results are consistent with PAs inducing spillover that benefits biodiversity in surrounding areas. These findings support the United Nations goal of achieving 30% PA coverage by 2030 by demonstrating that PAs are associated with higher vertebrate diversity both inside their boundaries and in the broader landscape.

No aggregate deforestation reductions from rollout of community land titles in Indonesia yet.

In Indonesia, 60 million people live within 1 km of state forest. The government of Indonesia plans to grant community titles for 12.7 million hectares of land to communities living in and around forests. These titles allow for using nontimber forest products, practicing agroforestry, operating tourism businesses, and selective logging in designated production zones. Here, we estimate the early effects of the program's rollout. We use data on the delineation and introduction date of community forest titles on 2.4 million hectares of land across the country. We find that, contrary to the objective of the program, community titles aimed at conservation did not decrease deforestation; if anything, they tended to increase forest loss. In contrast, community titles in zones aimed at timber production decreased deforestation, albeit from higher baseline forest loss rates.

How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity.

Biodiversity contributes to the ecological and climatic stability of the Amazon Basin1,2, but is increasingly threatened by deforestation and fire3,4. Here we quantify these impacts over the past two decades using remote-sensing estimates of fire and deforestation and comprehensive range estimates of 11,514 plant species and 3,079 vertebrate species in the Amazon. Deforestation has led to large amounts of habitat loss, and fires further exacerbate this already substantial impact on Amazonian biodiversity. Since 2001, 103,079-189,755 km2 of Amazon rainforest has been impacted by fires, potentially impacting the ranges of 77.3-85.2% of species that are listed as threatened in this region5. The impacts of fire on the ranges of species in Amazonia could be as high as 64%, and greater impacts are typically associated with species that have restricted ranges. We find close associations between forest policy, fire-impacted forest area and their potential impacts on biodiversity. In Brazil, forest policies that were initiated in the mid-2000s corresponded to reduced rates of burning. However, relaxed enforcement of these policies in 2019 has seemingly begun to reverse this trend: approximately 4,253-10,343 km2 of forest has been impacted by fire, leading to some of the most severe potential impacts on biodiversity since 2009. These results highlight the critical role of policy enforcement in the preservation of biodiversity in the Amazon.

Abrupt increase in harvested forest area over Europe after 2015.

Forests provide a series of ecosystem services that are crucial to our society. In the European Union (EU), forests account for approximately 38% of the total land surface1. These forests are important carbon sinks, and their conservation efforts are vital for the EU's vision of achieving climate neutrality by 20502. However, the increasing demand for forest services and products, driven by the bioeconomy, poses challenges for sustainable forest management. Here we use fine-scale satellite data to observe an increase in the harvested forest area (49 per cent) and an increase in biomass loss (69 per cent) over Europe for the period of 2016-2018 relative to 2011-2015, with large losses occurring on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Satellite imagery further reveals that the average patch size of harvested area increased by 34 per cent across Europe, with potential effects on biodiversity, soil erosion and water regulation. The increase in the rate of forest harvest is the result of the recent expansion of wood markets, as suggested by econometric indicators on forestry, wood-based bioenergy and international trade. If such a high rate of forest harvest continues, the post-2020 EU vision of forest-based climate mitigation may be hampered, and the additional carbon losses from forests would require extra emission reductions in other sectors in order to reach climate neutrality by 20503.

Effects of forest management and roe deer impact on a mountain forest development in the Italian Apennines: A modelling approach using LANDIS-II.

Forest development is a complex phenomenon which, for the number of actors involved and the response time expressed by forests, is difficult to understand and explore. Forests in Italy, as in several areas of Europe, are experiencing intensive management and recently, an increasing impact by ungulates. The effects on forest development of these two disturbances combined are difficult to predict, and consequently to be properly managed. We used a forest landscape change model, LANDIS-II, to simulate forest development as driven by forestry practices and roe deer impact for 200 years in a mountain forest of the Italian Apennines. We found that each disturbance alters forest tree species richness, forest type abundance and distribution, and forest structure. When considered combined, the two disturbances show additive behavior, enhancing or moderating each other's effects. Forest management has a negative effect on tree species richness. We expected roe deer to have a negative effect on harvest yields, but this result was significant only for two of seven harvesting treatments. On the other hand, roe deer presence had a positive effect on tree species richness. All the simulation scenarios returned some extent of forest loss. The amount of the forest loss is lowest in the scenario without disturbances, and greatest when both disturbances are considered. However, the two disturbances combined, with the magnitude modelled in our simulations, have relatively low effects on the forest dynamics we analyzed in our study area. LANDIS-II was an effective approach for simulating combined management and ungulate driven trends of forest development, and to help understand the dynamics that lay behind it.

Conservation of Tropical Forests in the Anthropocene.

If current trends continue, the tropical forests of the Anthropocene will be much smaller, simpler, steeper and emptier than they are today. They will be more diminished in size and heavily fragmented (especially in lowland wet forests), have reduced structural and species complexity, be increasingly restricted to steeper, less accessible areas, and be missing many heavily hunted species. These changes, in turn, will greatly reduce the quality and quantity of ecosystem services that tropical forests can provide. Driving these changes will be continued clearance for farming and monoculture forest plantations, unsustainable selective logging, overhunting, and, increasingly, climate change. Concerted action by local and indigenous communities, environmental groups, governments, and corporations can reverse these trends and, if successful, provide future generations with a tropical forest estate that includes a network of primary forest reserves robustly defended from threats, recovering logged and secondary forests, and resilient community forests managed for the needs of local people. Realizing this better future for tropical forests and people will require formalisation of land tenure for local and indigenous communities, better-enforced environmental laws, the widescale roll-out of payments for ecosystem service schemes, and sustainable intensification of under-yielding farmland, as well as global-scale societal changes, including reduced consumerism, meat consumption, fossil fuel reliance, and population growth. But the time to act is now, while the opportunity remains to protect a semblance of intact, hyperdiverse tropical forests.

State ownership of forests from different angles: policy, economics, and law.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of state ownership in forest governance in Turkey. It seeks to explore how property rights are affected by the complex, dynamic interplay of policies, economic influences, and the law. The historical development of state ownership, including its legal aspects, has been investigated in order to better understand the roots of current issues. An institutional approach has been followed. It is hypothesized that as the state exercises its property rights, it has both positive and negative effects on forest governance. This analysis confirms that state ownership may exceed its implementation capacity under the pressure of economic development objectives and that in areas where economic development is a priority, the loss of forests is inevitable. There is a need for a more adaptive approach to making policies related to property rights. The concept of the overriding public interest could be vital in achieving purposeful governance.