Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia
Some of the last remaining near-natural boreal forest landscapes in northern Europe can be found in the Russian Karelia near its border with Finland. Currently, these forests are facing strong exploitation pressure in the form of extensive clearcuts. Demand for conservation is also high. We characte...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00532-070208 https://doaj.org/article/f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 2023-05-15T17:00:12+02:00 Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia Charles Burnett Andrew Fall Erkki Tomppo Risto Kalliola 2003-12-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00532-070208 https://doaj.org/article/f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 EN eng Resilience Alliance http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss2/art8/ https://doaj.org/toc/1708-3087 1708-3087 doi:10.5751/ES-00532-070208 https://doaj.org/article/f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 Ecology and Society, Vol 7, Iss 2, p 8 (2003) Karelia Russia Finland boreal forest conservation policy dynamic modeling fragmentation land use GIS Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 article 2003 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00532-070208 2022-12-31T05:04:08Z Some of the last remaining near-natural boreal forest landscapes in northern Europe can be found in the Russian Karelia near its border with Finland. Currently, these forests are facing strong exploitation pressure in the form of extensive clearcuts. Demand for conservation is also high. We characterize the boreal forest landscape in the region and assess the impacts of past and potential management actions through a mapping and modeling study that synthesizes methods from landscape ecology, remote sensing, and simulation modeling. The forests of the study area were mapped using techniques for interpreting multitemporal satellite images and detecting changes. The species composition and structure of the forests were estimated using the multisource k-nearest neighbors (k-nn) method. Forest harvesting rates and current landscape patterns were used to parameterize models built with a cell-based Spatially Explicit Landscape Event Simulator (SELES) modeling tool, and alternative land-use policy strategies were simulated with and without natural fire. Based on 10 Monte Carlo runs for each scenario, we can predict dramatic changes in the forest landscape structure after 30-70 yr. The current, complexly structured, near-natural forest assemblage will rapidly be converted into its transpose: an expanse of young regeneration stands, with blocks of near-natural forest extant only as islands within mires and in the reserve areas. The prompt establishment of the proposed Kalevala National Park is regionally important for these reasons: (1) to increase the types of near-natural forest conserved, (2) to provide a second large biodiversity source adjacent to the heavily fragmented Finnish forests, and (3) to reduce the currently inflated rate of harvesting. Article in Journal/Newspaper karelia* karelia* Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Conservation Ecology 7 2 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Karelia Russia Finland boreal forest conservation policy dynamic modeling fragmentation land use GIS Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 |
spellingShingle |
Karelia Russia Finland boreal forest conservation policy dynamic modeling fragmentation land use GIS Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 Charles Burnett Andrew Fall Erkki Tomppo Risto Kalliola Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
topic_facet |
Karelia Russia Finland boreal forest conservation policy dynamic modeling fragmentation land use GIS Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Ecology QH540-549.5 |
description |
Some of the last remaining near-natural boreal forest landscapes in northern Europe can be found in the Russian Karelia near its border with Finland. Currently, these forests are facing strong exploitation pressure in the form of extensive clearcuts. Demand for conservation is also high. We characterize the boreal forest landscape in the region and assess the impacts of past and potential management actions through a mapping and modeling study that synthesizes methods from landscape ecology, remote sensing, and simulation modeling. The forests of the study area were mapped using techniques for interpreting multitemporal satellite images and detecting changes. The species composition and structure of the forests were estimated using the multisource k-nearest neighbors (k-nn) method. Forest harvesting rates and current landscape patterns were used to parameterize models built with a cell-based Spatially Explicit Landscape Event Simulator (SELES) modeling tool, and alternative land-use policy strategies were simulated with and without natural fire. Based on 10 Monte Carlo runs for each scenario, we can predict dramatic changes in the forest landscape structure after 30-70 yr. The current, complexly structured, near-natural forest assemblage will rapidly be converted into its transpose: an expanse of young regeneration stands, with blocks of near-natural forest extant only as islands within mires and in the reserve areas. The prompt establishment of the proposed Kalevala National Park is regionally important for these reasons: (1) to increase the types of near-natural forest conserved, (2) to provide a second large biodiversity source adjacent to the heavily fragmented Finnish forests, and (3) to reduce the currently inflated rate of harvesting. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Charles Burnett Andrew Fall Erkki Tomppo Risto Kalliola |
author_facet |
Charles Burnett Andrew Fall Erkki Tomppo Risto Kalliola |
author_sort |
Charles Burnett |
title |
Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
title_short |
Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
title_full |
Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
title_fullStr |
Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia |
title_sort |
monitoring current status of and trends in boreal forest land use in russian karelia |
publisher |
Resilience Alliance |
publishDate |
2003 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00532-070208 https://doaj.org/article/f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 |
genre |
karelia* karelia* |
genre_facet |
karelia* karelia* |
op_source |
Ecology and Society, Vol 7, Iss 2, p 8 (2003) |
op_relation |
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss2/art8/ https://doaj.org/toc/1708-3087 1708-3087 doi:10.5751/ES-00532-070208 https://doaj.org/article/f0c0ed2027ae4ffb9e849ab3b81ea895 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00532-070208 |
container_title |
Conservation Ecology |
container_volume |
7 |
container_issue |
2 |
_version_ |
1766052839382056960 |