Research supports multiple use forest planning

The project aims to (i) recognize the multiple use possibilities of forests, (ii) develop planning methods for measuring the effects different forest uses; and (iii) transfer the new knowledge and methods to practice.

• Forest landscape sensitivity classificaiton and efficient buffer zones in multiple use forest planning
• Development of business oriented, multi-objective regional forest planning in toursim centre of Ruka, Kuusamo
• The yield of Boletus edulis and forest management
• Management and planning of urban and recreational forests

The research results from these sub-projects will provide good practices, recommendations
and instructions which enable the use of forests in a way that is better in line with owners and stakeholders forest management goals. Methods and approaches are tested in pilot studies.

Balancing between pros and cons of different forest management alternatives

The question in multiple use forest planning is essentially focussed on estimating and valuing the impacts of different forest management alternatives. The increased information of the consequences of forest management decisions and the use of multiple use planning methods will create preconditions for forest owners and stakeholders to make better decisions.

The production possibilities of the planning area form the physical constraints for the utilization of the forests for different purposes. Due to often conflicting interactions between different forest uses (e.g. timber production and recreation), the same planning area can not provide simultaneously all the good things that could be expected from the planning area. This means that sometimes difficult decisions that result in an optimal balance between different forest uses need to be made. For making decisions in these kinds of multi-criteria situations, for example earlier research projects in Metla have already developed GIS approaches, optimization tecniques and multi-criteria decision support applications. In this project, the development work continues.

Overall, the development of multi-criteria decision support mehdots has been active in Finland. However, the use of these methods in practical forest planning has remained rather rare. The specific goal of the project is to trasfer the research results as a part of practical planning processes.