We should start talking about biodiversity loss denial, just like we discussed climate change denial in the recent past, researchers say.
Numerous surveys of forest owners have found that private family forest owners in Finland value nature and biodiversity. However, such findings tell us more about the general ideals of Western culture than about forest owners as protectors of biodiversity.
A study of forest owners conducted by the University of Eastern Finland’s School of Forest Sciences and Department of Geographical and Historical Studies along with the University of Helsinki’s Department of Forest Sciences identified three common modes of thought that forest owners use to conceptualise maintenance of biodiversity and their own role in that process. These modes of thought also reflect different ideas about sustainable forest use among family forest owners, who hold control over the use of two thirds of Finland’s forests.
Just under 40 per cent of forest owners fall back on a mode of thought which calls for them to do no more to promote biodiversity than the law requires. They may agree to management measures recommended for their commercial forests by forestry professionals to appease them, but they do not perceive a genuine need for these measures.
«To this group, the problem of biodiversity loss doesn’t exist, and concerns about the environment are seen as unrealistic fringe ideas held by nature conservationists. Modern ideas about sustainability are not part of this mode of thought,» explains Tuomo Takala, a researcher at the University of Eastern Finland.
For the next 40 per cent of forest owners, the standard measures for taking biodiversity into account in cutting operations, such as a buffer zone on the shoreline or a group of retention trees left in a clear-cut area, leave a positive feeling that they have done their part to conserve biodiversity. Habitats of endangered species can also be saved in cutting operations without any opposition as long as these habitats are known beforehand and are not too large or many.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Eastern Finland. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.