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Protected area as indicator of ecological sustainability? A century of development in Europe’s boreal forest Marine Elbakidze, Per Angelstam, Nikolay Sobolev,

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Presentation on theme: "Protected area as indicator of ecological sustainability? A century of development in Europe’s boreal forest Marine Elbakidze, Per Angelstam, Nikolay Sobolev,"— Presentation transcript:

1 Protected area as indicator of ecological sustainability? A century of development in Europe’s boreal forest Marine Elbakidze, Per Angelstam, Nikolay Sobolev, Erik Degerman, Kjell Andersson, Robert Axelsson, Olle Höjer, Sandra Wennberg Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

2 Boreal forests: why?  The second largest biome in the world ( ̴ 33% of all forests globally)  Global importance for mitigation and adaptation to climate change  An opportunity for conservation with high ambition levels, including ecological integrity and resilience

3 Aim To analyze and compare the development over time of formally PAs as an indicator of ecological sustainability in Europe’s boreal forest regions and countries

4 Boreal forests in Europe Bohn et al. 2004

5 Collected data  On terrestrial and inland water areas that were or are formally protected since the 1900th  The database includes: - name of a PA - national designation to a particular category - location (northern, middle or southern boreal forests) - size (in ha) - year of designation - year of conversion of a PA to other type of PA or unprotected area - IUCN management category  Identified a total of 17 086 PAs

6 Results 1. Results 1. Protected areas over time in Europe’s boreal forest

7 Results  The total PA in Europe’s boreal forest increased steadily from the 1900th to the 2010th  However, there was considerable variation in dynamics among different decades and northern, middle and southern boreal forests  During eight decades out of ten the main growth in the total area of PAs took place in the northern boreal forest

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9 Results  Strict nature reserves (I) and national parks (II) were the main categories of PAs’ during the first four decades  Their area proportion sharply declined in the 1960s  The current ‘set’ of PA categories was established in the 1970s  The area proportions for current PAs’ management categories have been relatively stable since the 1990s

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11 Results 2. Comaprisson among the countries

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13 Total area proportion (%) of PAsAverage annual change (%) of total area CountryIn 1909In 1950In 20101909 to 19501950 to 2010 NorwayNorthern00.018.9<0.0010.3 Middle00.113.70.0030.6 Southern00.05.3<0.0010.1 SwedenNorthern0.31.032.60.0150.6 Middle0.0 6.1<0.0010.1 Southern0.0 5.5<0.0010.1 FinlandNorthern03.121.30.0450.4 Middle00.12.60.0030.1 Southern00.74.40.0100.1 RussiaNorthern01.114.60.0280.3 Middle00.210.30.0030.2 Southern00.311.90.0070.2 The annual change (in %) of the increase of total proportion of PAs in the boreal forests

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15 Results The median size of PA:  124 ha in Russia  64 ha in Sweden  48 ha in Norway  10 ha in Finland

16 Conclusions  The existing PAs shows a poor representativity among the northern, middle and southern boreal forests since the beginning of 20th century.  As a result, by the end of 2010 the area proportion of PAs was 10.8% of the total boreal forest area in Europe with 17.2% of the total area of northern, 7.9% of the middle and 8.7% of the southern boreal forests.

17 Conclusions  The uneven representativity of PAs in Europe’s boreal biome and each country that was maintained during almost the entire century has been and is a big challenge for boreal biodiversity conservation today  Another challenge: the vast majority of boreal PAs are small in size, with the smallest areas in the southern boreal forest  The area proportion of protection is an important indicator for conservation efforts; however, it does not necessarily mean that PA networks are in place in terms of providing functional habitat networks for different ecosystems, or for ecological sustainability.


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