Nieminen E, Salovaara K, Halme P, Kotiaho JS. No evidence of systematic pre-emptive loggings after notifying landowners of their lands' conservation potential.
Ambio 2021;
50:465-474. [PMID:
32578123 PMCID:
PMC7782606 DOI:
10.1007/s13280-020-01354-4]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2020] [Revised: 05/02/2020] [Accepted: 06/02/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Landowners can intentionally impair biodiversity values occurring on their land to pre-empt biodiversity protection. This often leads to significant negative effects on biodiversity. We studied whether landowners in Finland engaged in pre-emptive loggings after they were notified that their wooded mires are candidate sites for a mire protection program. After the notification, harvesting rates of the candidate wooded mires were significantly lower compared to harvesting rates of similar but non-candidate wooded mires. Annual and monthly harvesting rates indicated that notifying landowners of the conservation potential did not launch systematic pre-emptive logging behavior. Nevertheless, part of the candidate wooded mires were logged, so some landowners place more weight on other values than the biodiversity ones. Pre-emptive behavior has been observed in other studies suggesting that many country- or system-specific factors such as cultural background or level of compensation can affect landowners' behavior.
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