Owners of Biodiversity: Linking Forest Ownership and Biodiversity Indicators
Abstract
Biodiversity indicators and forest management have been shown to differ between different ownership categories in Europe. However, no such comparison has previously been made in Norwegian forests. In this project I aimed to explore the links between biodiversity indicators and forest ownership in Norway. In addition, I sought to see whether forest property size, municipalities, distance to roads, or forest productivity explained the distribution of biodiversity indicators better than ownership categories as explanatory variables. Finally, I wanted to see if there were any differences in forest management between ownership categories, forest property sizes, or municipalities.
The study area consisted of forest properties within ten municipalities in south-eastern Norway, where I applied both natural and social science research methods. The natural science section included biodiversity indicators at: (1) the species level, using delimited observations of red-listed species from the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre; (2) the habitat level, using biodiversity habitats from environmental inventories in forestry; and (3) the landscape level, using maps produced from lidar data on forest structure. Shannon indices were calculated to estimate differences in diversity of red-listed species, within the different explanatory variables. The landscape and habitat indicators, on the other hand, were analysed statistically for deviation from the grand mean, and correlation with forest property sizes. The social scientific section contained questionnaire data about the forest management goals and practises of the owners. The management goals were analysed descriptively, and the management practises were analysed both descriptively and with deviation coding.
I found differences between ownership categories, but in contrast to previous research public forest owners did not have higher values of biodiversity indicators than private owners. However, an underlying influence from forest property size was observed, where owners with larger forest properties had lower values of biodiversity indicators. This trend correlated with more large-scale, private individual forest owners having economic profit as their primary goal, and using more clear-cutting in their forestry, compared to small-scale owners. Differences between municipalities seemed to explain the distribution of biodiversity indicators better than ownership, whilst distance to roads overall seemed to explain little to none of the distribution. Higher forest productivity, however, had in general a strong positive correlation with the biodiversity indicator values.
To conclude, overall differences in biodiversity indicators were observed within all the explanatory variables. However, differences in forest productivity and correlations with forest property sizes seemed to explain the distribution of indicators better than ownership categories, distance to roads, or municipalities. Furthermore, forest property sizes seemed to also have influenced the primary management goal and practises of the forest owners. Further research is needed to see how forest property sizes influence forest owners, and whether there are any other interactions influencing the explanatory variables looked at in this thesis.