Continuous cover forestry to retain habitats: Arvometsä

Arvometsä is a Finnish forestry services provider helping forest owners get more value out of their lands while retaining their biodiversity and recreational services. They provide forest planning, felling, and acquiring services, in-line with continuous cover forestry management approaches. In continuous cover forestry, only the largest trees in the forest are cut, either because they are at the ideal size for harvesting, or to make more space for the smaller commercial ones to grow. In this way, clear-felling is avoided, and the forest is able to retain its structure and continue to provide important habitats for many species. This practice allows the forest to regenerate itself without external inputs, displacing the need for expensive investments in seedlings, planting, and upkeep. At the same time, the forests generate revenue more frequently for their owners as trees are harvested every 15-25 years, compared to the 80 years it takes to complete a full growth cycle in an even-aged forest.

Biodiversity benefits

Continuous cover forestry approaches allow production sites to maintain forest structure at all times, and thereby enable continued habitat provision for a number of forest-dwelling species. One study on boreal production forests in Fennoscandia found that these benefits were particularly notable for species reliant on deciduous trees and mature forest structure in forests managed with this approach, compared to those managed with conventional rotation forestry. With the same study having noted that these approaches could lead to higher carbon sequestration than rotation forestry, continuous cover forestry can also offer benefits to addressing climate change, a key driver of biodiversity loss.