Bucovina Forestieră (Dec 2015)
Modificarea gradului de exercitare a funcțiilor ecoprotective: o analiză comparativă în păduri de stat și private [ Changes in the degree of ecoprotective functions effectiveness: a comparative study in state and private forests]
Abstract
The article uses the ecoprotective function effectiveness index (GEF) to identify how far the changes in the management practices in the last 20 years had an impact on the capacity of forest ecosystem to provide optimal functions. The study was carried out in Forest District Vama (Production Unit I Deia), Suceava County and employs an integrated methodology based on forest management plans, remote sensing tools and field inventory. The structural patterns of state and private forests have been compared in two periods (1990, 2014). The private forests integrated in the analysis have been restituted according to the law 18/1991 and have been for more than 20 years managed by the new forest owners. For the state forests, GEF was computed using structural characteristics of the stands obtained from the management plans. In the restituted forests, due to the lack of management plans, all the characteristics were obtained from field inventory. The study successfully identifies how the components of the index have changed and how this influenced the overall effectiveness of the ecoprotective functions. The changes in GEF index values in the state forests were influenced by natural evolution of the stands while in private forests by the anthropic and natural disturbances. For the state forests, the GEF index values showed a slight increase in 2014 comparatively to 1990. In the private forests the GEF index value for 2014 decreased with more than 5 points for more than one half of the area compared to 1990 (prior to forest restitution). The study argues the possibility to adapt the index as an efficient tool to assess such changes at a broader scale, as a decisional support in forest policy processes.
