No evidence of systematic pre-emptive loggings after notifying landowners of their lands' conservation potential.
Eini Nieminen, Kalle Salovaara, Panu Halme, Janne Sakari Kotiaho
Author Information
Eini Nieminen: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland. eini.m.nieminen@jyu.fi. ORCID
Kalle Salovaara: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Panu Halme: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Janne Sakari Kotiaho: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Landowners can intentionally impair biodiversity values occurring on their land to pre-empt biodiversity protection. This often leads to significant negative effects on biodiversity. We studied whether landowners in Finland engaged in pre-emptive loggings after they were notified that their wooded mires are candidate sites for a mire protection program. After the notification, harvesting rates of the candidate wooded mires were significantly lower compared to harvesting rates of similar but non-candidate wooded mires. Annual and monthly harvesting rates indicated that notifying landowners of the conservation potential did not launch systematic pre-emptive logging behavior. Nevertheless, part of the candidate wooded mires were logged, so some landowners place more weight on other values than the biodiversity ones. Pre-emptive behavior has been observed in other studies suggesting that many country- or system-specific factors such as cultural background or level of compensation can affect landowners' behavior.
