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Public commodities of forests (6.4)
Forests produce many products and immaterial services which
benefit all citizens and which are important contributions to the
quality of life. Most of the universal public goods are free, and
commercialisation of all of these goods is not possible or reasonable.
In some cases, society compensates the production of
a public good to the landowner.
The Forest Biodiversity Programme for Southern Finland (METSO)
offers options for forest owners to protect their forests or
to enhance natural values of the forests by management and
receive compensation for these activities. The options the METSO
programme offer are permanent protection, temporary protection
and management of forest habitats. Permanent protection
can be implemented by acquiring the area into State ownership
or by establishing a private conservation area. An area may be
placed under temporary protection for a maximum period of 20
years pursuant to the Nature Conservation Act. Also, pursuant
to the Act on the Financing of Sustainable Forestry, an area may
be placed under temporary protection for 10 years at a time by
concluding an environmental support agreement.
Typical sites covered by environmental support include valuable
habitats protected under the Forest Act. With the help of the
support, the area protected can form a more extensive entity
than that protected by law. Management of forest habitat can
be maintaining or enhancing natural values, or restoring the forest
to a more natural state. Natural environment management
projects most commonly involve water protection, habitat surveys
and management, or landscape management. The management
work is planned in cooperation with the forest owner, and
the management will not cause costs to the forest owner.
The Government has set as a target that the total of areas voluntarily
offered for conservation by the landowners will be 96,000
hectares by 2016, either set up as private conservation areas or
acquired into State ownership. Moreover, the total area of sites
safeguarding biodiversity in private forests will be increased by
82,000 to 173,000 hectares. Between 2005 and 2010, 11,893
hectares of forest have been placed under permanent protection
and 636 hectares under temporary protection in the METSO
programme. The total amount of environmental support for
forest management granted under the Act on the Financing of
Sustainable Forestry in 1997–2009 was EUR 31 million, and
agreements valid at the end of 2009 covered a total of 39,643 hectares. In all, EUR 32 million has been used on natural environment
management projects.
Recreational value trading presents an opportunity to combine
the needs of landowners and others interested in the recreational
value of nature. In recreational value trading, the landowner
surrenders certain rights relating to the use of the property or
undertakes to maintain the land he/she owns so that its recreational
values (for example, landscape values) are kept to an
agreed standard, or accords agreed rights for the recreational
use of the land to the purchaser of the recreational value.
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