Income losses due to the implementation of the habitats directive in forests - conclusions from a case study in Germany

In the context of implementing the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) approximately 17% of the German forest area was designated in "Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)". Amongst these there are many beech forests which were not subject to a special protection status before. Management plans, containing measures for the protection of SACs, are just being developed. These measures may cause restrictions to forest management leading to losses of income. Our study aimed to analyse natural and economic impacts of the implementation of the Habitats Directive which could, e.g. be used as a basis for designing compensation schemes. In discussion with operational managers it became clear that the measures most restrictive to forest enterprises were small-area land set-aside, restrictions in choice of tree-species and maintenance of a sufficient share of mature stands. The impact of those nature protection measures on case-study forest enterprises was evaluated using an excel based simulation model which enabled the calculation of, e.g., income losses based on enterprise individual data for a given simulation-period. The main factors influencing income losses were age-class distributions, management practices and objectives of forest enterprises. Annual income losses for the enterprises averaged 31 to 39 €/ha.