Romanian pilot initiative for spruce monoculture conversion to forests similar to the natural forest’s types in Fagaras Mountains
Main picture Romanian Demo.png
During the communist period, many hectares of coniferous trees, especially spruce, were planted in Romania to replace natural beech and mixed forests. These interventions caused multiple ecological imbalances including severe decrease of biodiversity, lack of long term stability, changes in water regime and many other side effects. Conversion requires multiple interventions through gradually reducing the density of the stand and, through planting or natural regeneration, bringing the composition of the stands closer to the natural forest type.
Context:
The methods for reducing the number of spruce trees inside monocultures along with saving the existing trees from other natural species and planting under the canopies the missing species were designed to have the lowest possible environmental impact first of all.
The continuity of the forest canopy on the restoration places is maintained all time, no brutal changes are allowed, the forest saplings planted will grow profiting from the better climatic conditions under the remaining trees canopy. In more steep and sensitive slopes the eliminated spruce trees are remaining debarked as dead wood in the forest improving soils quality avoiding also negative impact of logging activities.
In the areas where the eliminated spruce trees are extracted through logging access with forests machineries was not allowed inside forests. The logs were extracted with horses ensuring less negative impact on soils and remaining trees and also revitalizing old traditions in logging with horses
Culturally, natural and diverse forests are closer to Romania’s traditional landscape, with greater identity and aesthetic value. They stimulate ecotourism, recreation, and environmental education, strengthening the bond between communities and their environment.
Problem Description:
The problem with spruce monocultures is that they are extremely unstable in unfavorable conditions, such as wind damage, drought, and bark beetle attacks. Spruce trees cannot stabilize the soil well with their superficial roots, which can also cause landslides, water consumption is significantly higher.
The previous natural forests were much better adapted to local conditions, hosting also high biodiversity
The precautious type of interventions used have diminished the wind blows risks. Definitively precautious interventions avoid tremendous negative impact of clear cut if the spruces would have been eliminated in a single intervention.
Precautious interventions scheme has to include minimum 2-3 interventions in the next 20 years in order to have sufficient light in the forests for proper plantations evolution.
Implementation Steps:
· Step 1: Identification of pure planted spruce stands on former beech or mixed forests areas and collection of local description data (species composition, age of trees, density index, slope, exposure, soil type, altitude)
· Step 2: Selection of the spruce trees to be eliminated.
· Step 3: Organization of the acquisition for execution of works (specific terms of reference in order to minimize logging impact)
· Step 4: Supervising logging activities to ensure less environmental impact.
· Step 5: Production of bio forest saplings from missing species (fir, beech, sycamore) in local nurseries
· Step 6: Operations planning and planting of missing species in the openings created by the first thinning operation
· Final step: Annual monitoring the planted seedlings, replacing dead saplings and identifying proper moments for next thinning operations to create more light for the planted seedlings (5-7 years after first planting)
Stakeholder Engagement:
Stakeholder engagement was included at the beginning of the practice, we organized multiple workshops with stakeholders from all areas of interest to our project.
We presented the work proposed in the project and discussed how they could join us in the process of restoring artificial forests.
Throughout the project, we collaborated with forest owners, municipalities, forest district managers, reforestation companies and logging companies.
Knowledge Types:
The main knowledge gained from forest restoration processes was:
- The importance of creating open pockets within the forest that are large enough to allow future seedlings of artificially introduced or naturally regenerated species to have enough light to survive.
- The need to repeat the interventions every few years to provide more light for the seedlings again.
The importance to have precocious interventions in the forests in order to avoid natural catastrophes or the well-known clear cut negative effect
- The importance of informing local peoples and younger generations about the restoration of natural ecosystems.
Replicability:
YES, the practice has been tested and replicated in multiple contexts and scales and therefore, can be easily transferred and/or adapted to other initiatives with similar goalsDuring the LIFE projects, our organization has carried out restoration work on artificial spruce forests using the same technique as in the SUPERB project.
We want to continue with forest restoration even in our future projects.
Key Success Factors:
The following factors contributed to the success of the restoration work:
- The opportunity of working on our own land was a shortcut
- Experience gained in previous projects did help us
- Creation of scientific studies about spruce monocultures transformation for the Carpathia Foundation in previous projects was a strong point
- Good knowledge about local forest works companies helped us in implementing restoration
- Local schools and their kids being open to learn about forest restoration.
- The interest of landowners in collaborating on such future projects.
Common Constraints:
Only technical. If thinning is not done correctly and the openings in the forest are not large enough to provide the light necessary for the survival of the saplings, they will not survive under the remaining forest canopies.
Thinning cannot be done too excessively either, as there is a risk of creating possible windfalls by reducing too much the threes density.
The forest saplings to be planted have to be well adapted to the local climatic and soil conditions
Lessons Learnt:
Restoration activities have to be carefully planned and performed in order to copy natural processes and have less environmental negative impact and never the less in some cases have to bring also some economical gains other wise the common land owners will not be interested in these activities.
Positive Impacts:
- Increased (high-quality) lying deadwood
- Increased climate suitability of tree species
- Increased plant, animal and fungal diversity
- Increased structural diversity
- Increased tree species diversity
The beneficial impact was assessed by researchers in the field of forestry and ecology. We collaborated on certain studies based on the efficiency of artificial spruce restoration works, which proved to be beneficial, accelerating and even imitating the natural return of native species to habitats occupied by spruce.
- Active Restoration
- Implementation
- Monitoring & Projecting
- Landowners & Practitioners
- Planners & Implementers
- Policy Actors
- Climate change mitigation
- Landscape connectivity and diversity
- Restoration after direct human impact
- Risk mitigation and disturbance prevention
- Structural diversity
- Tree species/functional diversity
- Show 3 more
- Alpine
- Romania
- Environmental
- 200 Ha