Conservation implications of forest changes caused by bark beetle management in the Å umava National Park

The question, whether the forest management adopted in several European national parks following natural disturbances (windstorms, bark beetle) is in the long term the optimal one is currently widely discussed in a pan-European context. Instead of a clear management policy, however, only non-compulsory recommendations are suggested and management directives are missing. For example, it is established that non-intervention management is optimal for preserving biodiversity in mountain spruce stands, as logging diminishes biodiversity, but no such recommendation has been passed on to the managers of these stands. In the absence of such guidance park managers adopt various suboptimal strategies, which depend on who owns a particular area of the forest (private or state-owned) and their priorities. Here we present an example of this: the differences between the management practices applied by state and private owners in the central part of the Å umava NP. Using aerial photographs, we evaluated the effect of these practices by comparing the status of Natura 2000 habitats in 2004 (when the Natura 2000 area was designated), with that in 2011 (four years after the Kyrill wind storm, when the post-wind storm activities had more or less finished). The private owner logged and removed trees from significantly larger areas than the Å umava NP Authority. However, even management by the Å umava NP Authority was sometimes suboptimal: they managed some valuable habitats in a similar way to those of lower conservation value. We conclude that a clear definition of the long-term management strategy for national parks, obligatory on all owners, is critically important for the management of Natura 2000 habitats. A consensus of state representatives, regional politicians, scientists and all other stakeholders, expressed in obligatory international directives, is needed in order to guarantee that in the future the status of Natura 2000 habitats will still be favourable (required by the Habitats Directive, Article 6). Specifically, the managers of Natura 2000 sites would appreciate clearer European Commission guidance on how to maintain the favourable status of the stands in the areas under their control.