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Summary: Mature forests have structural habitat features that can take hundreds of years to develop, and large reserves alone are unlikely to ensure conservation of the species that rely on these features. This paper outlines a proposed new approach to managing mature forest features, the ‘mature habitat management approach’, in areas outside of reserves. The objective was to maintain a network of current and future mature forest habitat distributed across the landscape. The approach is designed to complement the existing reserve network and management actions and is tenure‐blind. Spatial information on the availability of mature forest habitat at the local (1‐km radius) and landscape (5‐km radius) scales is used for decisions on retention within a 1‐km radius of a harvest area, to reach the minimum target of 20% and 30% retention of mature forest at the local and landscape spatial scales, respectively. We believe this approach could contribute to meeting the conservation needs of many species that require mature forest features for refuge and breeding in Tasmania and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present a framework for identifying areas with high dead wood potential (DWP) for conservation planning needs. The amount and quality of dead wood and dying trees are some of the most important factors for biodiversity in forests. As they are easy to recognize on site, it is widely used as a surrogate marker for ecological quality of forests. However, wall-to-wall information on dead wood is rarely available on a large scale as field data collection is expensive and local dead wood conditions change rapidly. Our method is based on the forest growth models in the Motti forest simulator, taking into account 168 combinations of tree species, site types, and vegetation zones as well as recommendations on forest management. Simulated estimates of stand-level dead wood volume and mean diameter at breast height were converted into DWP functions. The accuracy of the method was validated on two sites in southern and northeastern Finland, both consisting of managed and conserved boreal forests. Altogether, 203 field plots were measured for living and dead trees. Data on living trees were inserted into corresponding DWP functions and the resulting DWPs were compared to the measured dead wood volumes. Our results show that DWP modeling is an operable tool, yet the accuracy differs between areas. The DWP performs best in near-pristine southern forests known for their exceptionally good quality areas. In northeastern areas with a history of softer management, the differences between near-pristine and managed forests is not as clear. While accurate wall-to-wall dead wood inventory is not available, we recommend using DWP method together with other spatial datasets when assessing biodiversity values of forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]