Selection criteria of protected forest areas in Europe: The theory and the real world

In recent decades, European protected forest areas primarily dedicated to biodiversity conservation have been increasingly selected using standard criteria that refer to three guiding principles in conservation planning: sufficient representativeness, adequate spatial design and adequate site suitability. The way these criteria are currently used by land planners was assessed through a standardised questionnaire sent to representatives from 21 European countries involved in the COST E27 action, and compared to prescriptions from the scientific literature. Results show that only 26% of the 101 types of protected forest areas, distributed in nine different countries, have been selected on the basis of all three guiding principles. For many protected area networks, insufficient importance is given to spatial design and site conditions, with the result that long-term persistence of biodiversity is far from guaranteed. The use of quantitative objectives, operational targets and optimisation approaches is also infrequent, in spite of repeated commitments of European forest ministers (MCPFE) to establish coherent, comprehensive and representative forest conservation networks. Overall, the adoption of a more systematic approach in forest conservation planning seems to be hindered by a dearth of operational guidelines to assess spatial design and site suitability, by insufficient collaboration between biologists and land planners, and by a shortage of funding to establish conservation networks.