No evidence of systematic pre-emptive loggings after notifying landowners of their lands’ conservation potential |
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Authors: | Eini Nieminen Kalle Salovaara Panu Halme Janne Sakari Kotiaho |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland ;2.School of Resource Wisdom, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland |
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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.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01354-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
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Keywords: | Environmental policy Forest conservation Mire conservation Panic clearing Peatland Private protected area |
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