Fostering nature conservation: issues and challenges for forest governance from landscape to European scale

Habitats and species are largely threatened by anthropogenic pressures worldwide (mainly land use change and climate). This condition originates a reduction of health and functionality of ecosystems, and in turn their capa city to support human wellbeing over space and time. Among terrestrial ecosystems, forests host many rare and endemic plant and animal species, especially in the Mediterranean region, and represent key habitats for global biodiversity. Despite the recent policy strategies in Europe (e.g., protected areas’ establishment), slow progresses towards forest biodiversity conservation have been made during the last decade. As a consequence, much more eforts are still required to invert this decline at various scales. Accordingly, this work contributes to the current debate on biodiversity conservation, through providing updated and consistent elements on how forest gover nance may improve forest biodiversity. The work is based on a two-step literature review, whose contents mainly refer to on one hand the current forest biodiversity monitoring tools as available at European and landscape sca les, and on the other hand the linkages between forest governance and biodiversity conservation. Review outco mes demonstrate that: (i) synergies among available monitoring tools for forest biodiversity need to be streng thened in order to improve their efectiveness; (ii) conservation strategies should be integrated into current fore st governance in a more systematic way; (iii) biodiversity ofset and other compensation mechanisms need to be promoted and implemented at various scales; (iv) forest monitoring should include methods and tools to balance trade-ofs between biodiversity conservation and other forest ecosystem services, even considering external bar riers and drivers through simulation experiments; (v) biodiversity must be included as a part, and not as an “ex - ternal” factor, of the whole ecosystem services bundle in order to beter address both global and local population needs; and (vi) traditional knowledge should be considered and reevaluated as a key element to improve biodi versity conservation at local scale. Main findings reveal that from local to European scale, forest governance - in cluding innovative forest management and planning, and adopting simulation tools and advances monitoring in struments - may support biodiversity conservation in an efective way only if adaptation theories and nature based solutions are considered and implemented through properly considering diferent and peculiar local con texts.