Journal
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
Volume 259, Issue 8, Pages 1624-1632Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2010.01.040
Keywords
Nature; Hemeroby; Biodiversity assessment; IUCN National Park evaluation; Ecological integrity
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Funding
- Bavarian State Ministry for Environment, Human Health and Consumer Protection
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Naturalness assessments are required for the evaluation of conservation schemes and programmes such as large-scale IUCN protected areas (National Parks) where nature restoration is a main management objective. More than 99% of the landscapes of Central Europe lost their reference sites for naturalness assessments with cutting of the last virgin forests. We present the Relative Quantitative Reference Approach for Naturalness Assessments (RANA), a method for overcoming the lack of virgin forests using a surrogate reference for forested landscapes. RANA combines heterogeneously scaled bio-important variables. We tested the RANA in the Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany, with an assumed naturalness gradient in different park zones. The results demonstrate that the RANA is a highly sensitive method for evaluating ecosystem responses to forest restoration and conservation. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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