Effects of landscape structure and forest reserve location on old-growth forest bird species in Northern Finland

Old-growth forest birds in Fennoscandia have sharply declined in numbers during the last decades apparently due to commercial forest harvesting and fragmentation of old-growth forests. Conservation measures have led to the establishment of a forest reserve network to assure the persistence of forest birds at a regional scale. However, little is known about the effects of landscape structure within and around the reserves on the distribution of old-growth forest birds. We used a hierarchical approach to address the questions of how landscape structure and composition within forest reserves, landscape composition of surrounding areas and reserve location affect the abundance of resident, old-growth forest birds in the Northern Finnish forest reserve network. The positive role of particular landscape features on bird distribution indicates that both the proportion of old-growth forests and the structure of boreal landscape mosaic has an important role in determining the distribution of these birds. The landscape composition surrounding the reserves proved to be only a weak predictor in species distribution models, which argues against the primary role of the surrounding matrix in determining species distribution within forest reserves. Reserves located near the Russian border showed a higher abundance of old-growth birds than more western ones. Once east-west gradients in overall landscape composition had been accounted for, however, reserves did not differ significantly in the number of species present. These results suggest that landscape gradients, rather than ecological processes such as the presence of source areas located along the border with Russia, are the main determinant of the distribution of old-growth forest birds in the Finnish reserve network. We propose that to enhance regional persistence of old-growth forest birds, conservation efforts should be primarily directed towards the protection and enhancement of forest habitat quality and natural heterogeneity of landscapes within targeted areas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Simulated financial losses of classical swine fever epidemics in the Finnish pig production sector

Rapid structural change and concentration of pig production in regions with most intensive production has raised concerns about whether the risk of large-scale disease losses has increased in Finland. This paper examines the pig industry's losses due to classical swine fever (CSF) epidemics. The work is based on economic and epidemiological models providing insights to the consequences of epidemics to infected and uninfected farms, government and meat processing. The economic analysis was carried out by use of a sector model, which simulated the recovery of pig production, starting from the recognition of the disease in the country and ending at a steady-state market equilibrium about 12 years later. The model explicitly took into account profit-maximising behaviour of producers and the effects of decrease in export demand.

Epidemiological evidence suggests that under the current spatially diversified structure of Finnish pig farming and related industries, the probability of a severe disease epidemic counting dozens of infected farms is small. Even for epidemics considered large in Finland (5–33 infected farms) combined with a major reduction in export demand, the median loss was simulated to be only €19.2 million. The majority of these losses were due to loss of exports corresponding almost 20% of pig meat production in Finland. While the current structure of pig farming in Finland incurs higher production costs than the most intensive structures in Europe, it also seems to decrease the probability of ‘catastrophic’ economic losses. The results suggest that the response of export markets and the number of uninfected farms affected by preventive measures are critical to the magnitude of losses, as they can amplify losses even if only few farms become infected.     

Chemical restraint-reversal with medetomidine and atipamezole in veterinary small animal practice: a survey on the opinions of the dog owners and veterinarians.

The opinions of animal owners and practising veterinarians concerning a new restraint-reversal medication (medetomidine-atipamezole) for dogs were obtained by two questionnaires in connection with a clinical study. Four alternative answers to each statement question scored as "completely agree", "somewhat agree", "somewhat disagree" and "completely disagree". The questionnaires were completed by 21 veterinarians and 245 dog owners. The overall response to the treatment was clearly positive. Both groups had a favourable attitude towards drug use with mean combined scores (from 1 to 4; 4 = most favourable) of 48.1 (max 56) for the dog owners and 39.2 (max 52) for the veterinarians. Only a little information was gained about the background of negative sentiments. Some pet owners (19%) opposed to medication on a priori grounds, some (26%) reacted strongly to the dizziness of their animals and some owners (21%) complained because of general anxiety before, during and after their pets were treated.     

Natural regeneration after gap cutting in Scots pine stands in northern Finland

The objective of the study was to examine the success of regeneration in gaps of variable size in pine-dominated stands in terms of seedling density. It was based on an experiment in central Lapland containing circular clear-cut gaps of 20, 40 and 80 m in diameter on typical sub-xeric and xeric pine sites with site preparation (patch scarification). The observation period covered the first five years after cutting. The average number of seedlings that had emerged after gap cutting was about 22 000?ha^?1 for pine and 7 000?ha^?1 for birch. The proportion of regeneration sample plots without any pine seedlings was less than 10%. The seedling density diminished constantly with greater distance from the edge stand but indicating sufficient density up to the largest gap size in the study (diameter 80 m, area ca. 0.5?ha). Site preparation promoted regeneration remarkably, and we conclude that successful regeneration would be achieved in most cases with soil scarification exposing just 10–20% of the soil surface.     

Mesta: An internet-based decision-support application for participatory strategic-level natural resources planning

We tested the Mesta Internet-based decision-support application in connection with a natural resources planning (NRP) process in Eastern and Western Lapland, Finland. The aim in this process was to define the land-use allocation and the corresponding forest management operations for state-owned forests within these planning regions. Mesta was used in examining and evaluating the strategy alternatives from the viewpoint of the stakeholders' objectives. The basic idea in using Mesta is to define the acceptance thresholds that divide the alternatives into ‘acceptable’ and ‘not acceptable’ alternatives with respect to each decision criterion. The thresholds are adjusted holistically, i.e. so that all decision criteria and criteria values of all decision alternatives are simultaneously visible from the user interface. The holistic adjustment process is continued until an acceptable solution compliant with the production possibilities of the planning area is found. In the NRP process, the members of the stakeholder group first used Mesta individually to set their own thresholds. Next, the participants' acceptance thresholds were combined and a negotiation process was launched to find the group's common acceptance thresholds. This negotiation was also supported by Mesta. The result of the negotiation was that the participants were able to collaboratively decide on their recommendation for the future land-use allocation and the forest management principles to be applied in the two planning regions. The main benefit of Mesta as a decision-support tool during the negotiation process of the group was that the participants were forced to merge their preferences with the realistic production possibilities of the planning regions.     

Participation and compensation claims in voluntary forest conservation: A case of privately owned forests in Finland

A new market-based voluntary programme aimed at preserving forest habitats on private land has been implemented in Finland. This scheme is based on conservation by fixed-term agreements between forest owners and a governmental authority. In this study we examine the characteristics of forest owners and their properties that indicate the owners' willingness to participate in the programme. In addition, we analyse factors affecting the real compensation claims. The study uses a dual set of data from the pilot project, i.e. one data set supplied by the authority and another collected from the owners involved in the project. The results suggest that to increase the participation rate, information on the conservation project should be targeted in particular to the forest owners who either emphasize financial investment as a motive for forest ownership, have positive attitudes toward nature protection, or own large amounts of forest property. Additionally, owners' positive environmental preferences would decrease and high harvesting value and high ecological quality of a preserved forest stand would increase compensation claims. The voluntary programme could not, however, circumvent owners' strategic behaviour with respect to the claims.     

An approach for examining the effects of preferential uncertainty on the contents of forest management plan at stand and holding level

A proper forest planning process includes the assessment of the decision-makers’ preferences concerning the future forest use. For some owners, it may be a difficult task to express their preferences exactly and in the form that is required for planning calculations. This study presents a new kind of approach for analyzing the effects of preferential uncertainty. The approach consists of examination of the differences in the actual decision variables in forest planning, i.e. selected treatments for stands between holding-level forest plans. In example calculations, the preferential uncertainty was examined from three different viewpoints: the uncertainty in the weights of the objective variables; the uncertainty in the partial utility function; and the combination of these two uncertainty sources. One thousand preference realizations were generated for each of these uncertainty sources. More than one treatment schedules are proposed for stands that are affected by preferential uncertainty. These stands were detected from among the resulting set of 1,000 forest plans. With this done, two potential decision-making strategies, an adaptive behavior strategy and a threshold proportion strategy, were applied as guides in decision-making for stands, which have more than one treatment alternative selected in the produced optimal forest plans. The adaptive behavior technique required that the forest owner select one treatment alternative for at least one stand that has more than one proposed treatment alternative. The treatment alternatives having frequencies exceeding the given threshold frequency were all accepted simultaneously in the threshold strategy. The main benefit of the approach is to present the effects of uncertainties in a way that can be easily understood by the actual decision-makers. It is a promising tool for practical decision-making situations because at least Finnish non-industrial private forest owners quite often focus on making stand-level forest management decisions. It is also suitable for examinations of other uncertainty sources such as timber prices or inventory data.