Abstract
Appropriate management of European spruce forests in this time of climatechange is a significant challenge. Uniform principles of quality forest practicemust be applied, essentially in forests that are valuable from a conservationpoint of view.
However, this may be problematic in protected areas with mixedownership and disparate priorities. Managerial decision-making is often basedon personal knowledge, previous experience, priorities other than conserva-tion, or political influence.
Clear management guidelines at the European andnational levels are lacking in many protected areas. In this article, we use datafrom thevSumava NP to elucidate varied management approaches applied bystate and private municipal owners in forests of high conservation value.
Weused high-resolution aerial photographs to evaluate the effects of forest man-agement practices applied, and compared the status of spruce habitats beforeand after a major windstorm and large-scale bark beetle outbreak. We foundthat follow-up forest management measures have significantly affected forestsin thevSumava NP negatively.
However, changes are not equally spread acrossthe area of study, with forest ownership important for the type and intensity ofchanges. Kavsperské Hory Municipality, managed their forests more as a pro-ductive commercial forest as contrasted to the state owned forest.
We compareour findings with experiences from other Central European national parkswith similar forest management challenges. Options for improving and unify-ing the management of conservation-valuable forests held in state and privateownership are discussed in the conclusion.
Wide political consensus and stabil-ity together with long-term mutual trust and a willingness to collaborateamong conservationists, forest managers and forest owners were recognized tobe essential for the successful achievement of conservation goals.