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Paper short abstract:

This paper will analyze how - paradoxically - the disappearance of human impact, in the form of traditional management, has reduced biodiversity in European lowland forests, and how management reintroduction can contribute to maintaining healthy forests in a changing climate.

Paper long abstract:

The dominant narrative of 20th-century forest conservation focused on the elimination of human impact from forests. Forests, so the narrative went, should be governed by natural processes, and the best way to achieve this was non-intervention, at least outside commercial stands. When forest management was necessary, those methods were to be preferred that imitated natural processes, such as the Pro-Silva method of close-to-nature forestry. While these principles worked well in many forests, there were some regions, especially in the lowlands, where non-intervention led to decreasing biodiversity because of natural forest succession. Recent research in forest historical ecology pointed out that the reason behind this apparent paradox is likely to be the lack of human management. However, this management was different from the methods of scientific forestry. It mainly included traditional management types, such as coppicing, litter raking and forest grazing, which kept forests relatively open. When these uses were restricted or even banned by forestry authorities, the resulting succession led to the impoverishment of light-demanding forest flora. Realizing this, nature conservation authorities have tried to reintroduce traditional management into many European forests. However, the results are not always straightforward mainly because changing conditions, including atmospheric nitrogen deposition, warming temperatures and plant invasions, render the past hardly applicable to the present. Using examples from several European regions, this paper will provide an overview of the paradox of human impact for forest biodiversity and highlight best practices in achieving healthy forests in an uncertain future.