Coping with five mismatches between policy and practice in hemiboreal forest stands and landscapes

Abstract Maintenance of forest ecosystems revolves around the long-term persistence and resilience of their components, structures and functions. Focusing on Europe’s hemiboreal forests, we evaluate mismatches between naturally dynamic forest ecosystems and current forest management systems forming obstacles for developing closer-to-nature forest management. Using Lithuania as a case study, we (i) quantify the main forest vegetation community types using soil types, ground layer flora, and tree and shrub species, (ii) review the relationships among these vegetation communities and their predicted natural disturbance regimes, (iii) analyse changes in tree species composition, (iv) compare the life expectancy of trees with harvest age, and (v) compare the contemporary stand age distributions with predicted natural disturbance regimes stand age distributions. Results show five mismatches between current practices and policy visions. Despite identifying 17 natural hemiboreal forest vegetation communities only eight dominant stand tree species were reported in current forestry reporting. The areal extents of three different natural disturbance regimes were: gap dynamics - mixed broadleaved forests on wet-mesic very fertile sites (22%), succession - mixed spruce forests on fertile sites (49%), and cohort dynamics - Scots pine forest on poor fertility sites (30%). Changes in tree species composition showed declines of primary tree species of 12–71% for the three disturbance regimes. The ratio of natural expected life expectancy to harvest age varied from two-fold to eight-fold across different tree species. Stand age distributions in naturally dynamic forests and managed forests revealed a current dramatic deficit of old-growth stands. Coping with the five identified mismatches between natural forests and current forest management requires multiple solutions: (1) closer-to-nature forest management that emulate natural disturbance regimes at tree and stand scales, (2) landscape planning, and (3) multi-level governance approaches.