Assessment of Biodiversity Impacts in Swedish Forestry - Attitudes and Experiences in the Product Chain

Abstract

Biodiversity is decreasing and is expected to decrease even more in the future. The fundamental roles of biodiversity make this decrease critical and impacts on biodiversity should be taken into account in a lot of situations. That is not often the case today partly because of the complexity of biodiversity itself, the nature of the impacts on it, and the difficulties when it comes to assigning a value to it. There are numerous suggestions how to handle those questions presented in the literature. Even if different steps are taken in order to improve biodiversity in the real world, examples of the use of any methods for assessment of the effects are not that many. This study investigates the interest for and possibilities and problems connected to future application of biodiversity assessment methods in forestry and forest related industry sectors by interviews and mail contact with a number of companies and other organisations in the mentioned sectors. The answers are used as examples and compared to some suggestions regarding biodiversity assessment methods found in a parallel literature study and shows quite different views on what is wanted and needed. The study shows that present work with biodiversity is often focused on prerequisites for biodiversity and that assessment of actual biodiversity and biodiversity impact is very rare. Certifications are considered as important, but no follow-up is actually done to check whether biodiversity is improved. Regardless of if an assessment is made by the forest owners or by the forestry organisations or by the certification organisations, an assessment of some kind seems important in order to secure that the measures taken to improve biodiversity or the prerequisites for biodiversity really have the intended effects. The study also indicates a need for better communication and cooperation both within the studied sector and between the people that develop new and better tools and methods and between the people that are going to use them, are recommended. Keywords: Biodiversity, biodiversity impact assessment, forest.