Implementation

Comprehensive knowledge about the structural and site-specific requirements of protective forest management requires applied and adequately funded research. This includes topics such as forest ecosystems, forest technology, forest genetics, forest bioclimatology and forest hydrology as well as risk management.

Publicly accessible information on protective forests in Austria enables the planning of effective measures. Spatial geo-information allows risk-related assessment and thus prioritization of investments. Planning is continuously adapted to natural and social changes and measures are further developed.

In order to withstand the effects of natural hazards and climate change protective forests require intensive site-specific care. Lack of care and extreme events such as avalanches, storms, forest fires or barkbeetles can ultimately destroy protective forests and render their effect ineffective for decades. In these cases rapid restoration of the protective effect is required.

Protective forests are at the same time sensitive ecosystems, timber resources, protected areas for natural resources as well as zones for tourism, recreational use or hunting. These functions and utilization demands can come into conflict with the protective effect. Overloading by all these users jeopardizes the effect of the protective forests. Large-scale coordinated and sustainable use planning and management is therefore required.

The sustainable management of protective forests and the resolution of conflicts of use require the cooperation of all actors. Good cooperation requires voluntary or contractual forms of cooperation with clear rights and obligations of the partners. An important component is the forestry support of maintenance and regeneration measures by, for example, forestry services, chambers of agriculture, associations and marketing organizations.

Many Austrians are not aware of the protective function of forests. The social and economic value of the protective function of forests is mostly appreciated only at the very local level; the political importance at supra-regional level is rather low. Intensive information campaigns and awareness-raising are required in order to make people aware of the importance of protective forests for the safety of settlement and economic areas, tourism and agriculture.

The integrated treatment and tending of protective forests requires interdisciplinary knowledge as well as a high degree of specialisation. Sufficient specialised staff should be available in all regions. Targeted training safeguards local jobs in particular in agricultural and forestry services and creates local value.

In connection with the protective forest there are complex legal standards and administrative procedures. Requirements and restrictions for harvest and various uses of the forest area ensure an effective protective function of forests. The long-term security of the protective function of Austrian forests enjoys top priority. The goal is to offer all protective forest actors a regional consulting service with channeled administrative and funding procedures.

The maintenance of protective forests requires intensive, time-consuming and expensive tending and regeneration which oftentimes cannot be covered by the income from timber sales. In order to make measures in protective forests more attractive new financing models have to be developed and the management framework has to be improved. 

The value of protective forest measures also results from the social recognition of forest services. Protective forest management should be seen as the responsibility of forest owners and the obligation of all stakeholders, so that special benefactors recognize the services provided by the forest for the protection of property and living space. The goal is to establish a functional protective forest as a symbol of high security in the region.