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Abstract
In Scandinavia a widely adopted biodiversity maintenance measure
in managed forests is to leave retention trees to the clearcutting areas. A
certain number of retention trees are left to the cutting area permanently as
residual trees, which distinguishes them from shelterwood and seed trees.
The aim is to increase the amount of large-diameter decayed wood in
managed forest stands throughout their different development stages.
However, there is evidence that some forest owners have removed the
retention trees. The attitudes of forest owners in Finland towards
biodiversity issues in managed forests and their knowledge and behavior
concerning retention tree management were studied based on two surveys
conducted in 2001 and 2006. In general, forest owners' attitudes were
positive but their level of knowledge on biodiversity issues was moderately
low. There were no significant change in forest owners´ attitudes and the
level of knowledge between the two succeeding surveys. A sample of
clearcutting areas was measured in order to find out if retention trees had
been removed during a decade after the clear-cut. According the results
some retention trees had been removed from every third of the inspected
cutting areas. All the retention trees were harvested only from four percent
of the areas. Received forestry extension and better knowledge on
biodiversity issues decreased the likelihood to remove the retention trees.