Search

This paper presents an updated wilderness quality map, WQI 2.0, for Europe, which extends the existing map (WQI 1.0) to include non-EU states in Eastern Europe. The analysis utilizes the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform and incorporates contemporary datasets to assess wilderness quality across the continent. WQI 2.0 is compared to the previous version from the EU Wilderness register and global data from the WCS Human Influence Index (HII). Results indicate a high level of consistency between the versions, validating the robustness of the approach and the value of up-to-date datasets. WQI 2.0 serves as a valuable tool for developing a coordinated European policy on wilderness protection, encompassing both EU and non-EU states. By identifying areas outside current protected boundaries, the map helps to identify regions at risk of degradation and loss, due to resource exploitation. While small changes are seen between WQI 1.0 and WQI 2.0, expanding the coverage over the whole of continental Europe provides a foundation for the longer-term monitoring and evaluation of conservation targets. The findings contribute to meeting international commitments, such as the COP15 Kunming–Montreal Agreement and CBD targets, by highlighting the importance of preserving intact wilderness areas and increasing protected areas through restoration and rewilding efforts. Future iterations, such as WQI 3.0+, can track trends and potential threats to wilderness areas, while also identifying opportunities for ecosystem recovery through restoration and rewilding. To ensure comprehensive coverage, there is a need to update the existing Wilderness Register 1.0 and expand its scope to include non-EU states. This can be facilitated through collaboration with national WQI mapping programs, building on the experiences of countries such as Scotland, France, Iceland, and Germany, which have well-established national mapping initiatives. Overall, WQI 2.0 and the proposed updates provide valuable tools for informed decision-making in wilderness conservation and restoration efforts across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions: Primary forests fulfil important roles in preserving biodiversity, storing carbon and increasing ecological understanding. Yet, they have become very rare in Europe. An important policy goal is thus to increase the share of naturally developing forests by creating protected areas in formerly managed forests. Here, we investigated: (a) if and how such forests return to conditions similar to old-growth; and (b) whether recently observed stand-replacing natural disturbances in combination with climate change set them onto an alternative developmental pathway. Location: Dürrenstein Wilderness Area (IUCN Cat. Ib) in the Austrian Alps, containing the Rothwald, one of the last primary forest remnants of Central Europe. Methods: We built a chronosequence of 87 plots, spanning 220 years of forest development after the cessation of management, and compared them to old-growth forests. We analysed the recovery of nine attributes of forest composition, structure and functioning. To evaluate stand-level development of these attributes after recent natural disturbance and climate change, we additionally used a process-based simulation model. Results: Old-growth forests showed a wide range of variability across investigated attributes. Forests converged to old-growth conditions after management ceased, with seven out of the nine attributes falling within the range of old-growth at the end of our chronosequence. The variation in tree diameters and the downed amount of deadwood were, however, still significantly lower than in old-growth forests after 220 years of unmanaged stand development. Simulations did not indicate an alternative developmental pathway of recently disturbed stands. Conclusions: While a full return to old-growth conditions can take centuries, a number of important forest attributes recover quickly, indicating that protecting formerly managed forests is a valuable strategy to enrich forest landscapes. Our results indicate that the mountain forests of Central Europe have high ecological resilience, developing towards old-growth conditions after both past management and current natural disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Wilderness is vitally important: ecologically, economically, socially and culturally, yet it continues to decline globally. Despite high human modification and fragmentation in European landscapes, studies assessing wilderness in Europe suggest the presence of substantial areas of wilderness in mountainous areas. Following a European resolution, the importance of remaining wilderness areas has recently been recognised and efforts towards mapping and protecting remaining wildernesses have increased. The central Alps lie within Switzerland and have been identified in multiple studies as a potential wilderness hotspot in Europe. In this study we develop robust, objective indicators to quantify wilderness and apply them to Switzerland. The indicators account for varying perceptions of wilderness and were evaluated by experts. Assessing international expert opinion to define indicator weightings has not been carried out in similar studies in the past, but serves as a transparent, objective and reproducible approach. The indicators identified high quality wilderness areas, mostly at higher elevations, and demonstrate a suitable method for assessing remaining wilderness areas in landscapes subjected to large modifications by human activities. The spatial distribution of wilderness in the case study region Switzerland suggest that it may play an important role in wilderness conservation in Europe. Our study provides essential baseline information for wilderness monitoring, planning and protection, upon which future studies can build. Above this it provides robust, objective and adaptable indicators for wilderness quantification, which can be implemented in other countries and across various spatial scales. The method can be adapted for other countries – through the use of local expert opinions to weight indicators, and regions – with the inclusion of further datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmland abandonment takes place across the world due to socio-economic and ecological drivers. In Europe agricultural and environmental policies aim to prevent abandonment and halt ecological succession. Ecological rewilding has been recently proposed as an alternative strategy. We developed a framework to assess opportunities for rewilding across different dimensions of wilderness in Europe. We mapped artificial light, human accessibility based on transport infrastructure, proportion of harvested primary productivity (i.e., ecosystem productivity appropriated by humans through agriculture or forestry), and deviation from potential natural vegetation in areas projected to be abandoned by 2040. At the continental level, the levels of artificial light were low and the deviation from potential natural vegetation was high in areas of abandonment. The relative importance of wilderness metrics differed regionally and was strongly connected to local environmental and socio-economic contexts. Large areas of projected abandonment were often located in or around Natura 2000 sites. Based on these results, we argue that management should be tailored to restore the aspects of wilderness that are lacking in each region. There are many remaining challenges regarding biodiversity in Europe, but megafauna species are already recovering. To further potentiate large-scale rewilding, Natura 2000 management would need to incorporate rewilding approaches. Our framework can be applied to assessing rewilding opportunities and challenges in other world regions, and our results could guide redirection of subsidies to manage social-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a historical and systematic typology of perceptions of wilderness that exist in contemporary western European cultures. After describing notions of wilderness associated with worldviews that emerged during the Enlightenment period (theological, early Enlightenment, liberalism, democratism) and as a critical response to it (Rousseauism, early Romanticism, English and German conservatism), we outline four recent transformations of these traditional notions of wilderness: wilderness as an ecological object, as a place of nature's self-reassertion, as a place of thrill and as a sphere of amorality and meaninglessness. In our conclusion, we suggest what practical relevance arises from such a nuanced understanding of the inherently ambiguous concept of wilderness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The face of Europe has been shaped by human civilization for centuries and wilderness did not only vanish from the continent's surface but also from humans' minds and experiences. However, there are still a few places left, which have remained more or less unmodified and have at least the potential for rewilding. Among them are the Šumava National Park and the neighbouring Bavarian Forest NP, which together create a unique forest zone in the middle of Europe susceptible to host and demonstrate natural forest dynamics and ecosystem processes. This is also a large and very important Natura 2000 area. Transboundary cooperation between both National parks has improved since 1990, when the former Iron Curtain Corridor was opened, and culminated by the project Europe's Wild Heart. The main goal of the project Europe's Wild Heart, which started in 2008, was to develop a transboundary wilderness area in the core zones of the two national parks BFNP and ŠNP. The project area was 13,060 ha and a "life story"of this project is described in this paper. A common "vision 2020"was signed where both parks committed among other things "to achieve a joint core area of about 15,000 ha with harmonized management principles, information services and monitoring networks to officially become the first and largest transboundary wilderness area in Central Europe". Unfortunately, the bark beetle outbreak which followed the Kyrill hurricane in 2008 and 2009 escalated the discussion about appropriate forest management in the ŠNP. Opponents of the national park principles, non-intervention and wilderness concept became more and more vocal. The situation escalated after the election in 2010 when the Green Party was replaced by conservatives (ODS Civic Democratic Party) at the Czech Ministry of Environment. Clear cuttings were started in some former non-intervention parts of the ŠNP and hunting was again allowed in the core zone. Since then, both the management strategies and practical management measures in the ŠNP and BFNP have increasingly diverged. Opponents of the wilderness concept from both countries took advantage of the situation and, currently, the project Europe's Wild Heart is put on ice in both countries. Benefits and challenges of the project Europe's Wild Heart are discussed at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a multiplicity of ongoing conservation activities, European biodiversity loss is still ongoing, caused mainly by a high level of habitat loss and fragmentation. Along the former Iron Curtain, wilderness areas and valuable natural refuges were preserved across Europe from Fennoscandia to the Black Sea. Initiated in 2003, the European Green Belt (EGB) aims to create, maintain, improve and extend this trans-border ecological network. In this paper we discuss the ecological functions of the EGB and provide an overview of research potential, activities and needs along the corridor. The implementation of ecological networks within planning instruments and European strategies on green infrastructure and wilderness underlines the importance of the EGB. Fulfilling its function as the backbone of an ecological and social network on different levels, the EGB triggers intensive collaboration between neighboring countries and provides new chances for formerly marginalized border regions to choose a sustainable path for their further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents environmental news briefs. The Protected Area Network (PAN) Parks Foundation is creating a network of certified wilderness areas in European national parks. A plan was reveiled that will aim to protect the Jamaica Bay watershed in New York. Marine scientists met in Hawaii to design a network of protected areas in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ) in the eastern Pacific.

Wilderness protection is a growing necessity for modern societies, and this is particularly true for areas where population density is extremely high, for example Europe. Conservation, however, implies very high opportunity costs. It is thus crucial to create incentives for efficient management practices, to promote benchmarking and to improve conservation management. In the present paper we propose a methodology based on data envelopment analysis, DEA, a non-parametric benchmarking technique specifically developed to assess the relative efficiency of decision-making units. In particular, the objective of the discussed methodology is to assess the relative efficiency of the management units of the protected area and to indicate how it could be improved, by providing a set of guidelines. The main advantage of this methodology is that it allows us to assess the efficiency of natural park management not only internally (comparing the performance of the park with itself over time) but also by external benchmarking, thus providing new and different perspectives on potential improvements. Although the proposed methodology is fairly general, we have applied it to the context of Italian national parks in order to produce a representative case study. Specifically, the choice of adequate cost and benefit indicators is a very important and delicate phase of any benchmark analysis. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used to investigate the opinions of Italian national park managers and stakeholders and to define the relevant indicators for the analysis. Finally, relevant policy implications for the case study are given. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Post-WWII forced displacement caused major forest increase in Polish Carpathians. • 115k of 181k (63%) of forest increase until 1970 due to displacement. • Land-use regime switched from agricultural to forest-dominated stable state. • Displacement caused more forest increase than post-socialist abandonment. • Displacement areas now one of the largest wilderness areas in Central Europe. Armed conflicts and major political changes can result in the forced displacement of thousands of people and may have substantial effects on the environment. However, it is difficult to predict and mitigate long-term consequences of such displacements, especially when they trigger abrupt land-use changes that result in a regime shift of the land-use system. Our main goal was to determine the effects of post-WWII forced displacements on long-term landscape dynamics in the Polish Carpathians. After World War II, 630,000 Ukrainians were forcibly displaced from southeastern Poland, leading to permanent depopulation of mountain borderlands. We conducted a village-level analysis of forest area change across the Polish Carpathians (1685 villages/cadastral communities), and a detailed analyses of landscape change and land-cover trajectories in two highly depopulated test sites. Our source data were pre-war (1850s–1860s and 1930s) and post-war (1970s and 2010s) census data and topographic maps. We found a substantial forest area increase after displacements, far outpacing the widely reported forest increase due to the collapse of socialism in early 1990s, and a striking landscape simplification. Astonishingly, almost two thirds of the post-war (1930s–1970s) forest area increase in the entire Polish Carpathians (115,000 ha out of 181,000 ha) was due to the forced displacements. The land-use regimes shifted from being agriculturally-dominated to being forest-dominated, and approached a stable alternative state. As a result, a once densely populated rural region has become one of the largest 'wilderness' areas in Central Europe, with vast areas void of human settlements and resurgent wildlife populations. This highlights that forced displacements, which are common during and after armed conflicts, can have substantial and long-lasting effects on land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The arrival of wilderness as a policy issue, following the passing of a European Parliament resolution in 2009, has increased the profile of the issue and provided a challenge for policy-makers and practitioners. There is a need for a policy relevant definition that can guide decision-making in relation to the protection and management of wilderness areas, including their exploitation for economic benefit, and for information and data about the extent of existing wilderness and wild areas and the opportunities for its recreation. The scale of the challenge requires a high level of aspiration and any efforts will require the coordination of policy and implementation well beyond the borders of Europe itself. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

.