Future Imperfect: Climate change and adaptation in the Carpathians

Compensation schemes offer incentives in ex- change for better land management. In a “Pay- ment for ecosystem services” (PES) scheme com- pensation payments are tied to measures that provide ecological services. In forestry one such measure is to reduce the share of spruce and increase planting of fir, larch and mountain syca- more. Prolonging cutting intervals is another exam- ple. These measures strengthen forest resilience and protect against pest outbreaks triggered by ex- treme weather. In addition, incentives are created to reduce over exploitation and illegal logging. Adaptation Action: A Compensation Scheme for Forest Protection Carpathian forests face a range of pressures in- cluding over exploitation through logging. The absence of an equitable system of compensa- tion payments encourages local forest owners to overcut. Compensation for harvesting restrictions within private forests would create an incentive for owners to reduce harvesting. Payment for ecosystem services has been discussed in the Rodna-Maramureş region. As financial resources are limited, it was advised to give implementation priority to Protected Areas. In Rodna about 40% of the total of 23,000 hectares of forest is protected.

Figure 15: Forest cover change in the Western Car- pathians Beskids Mountains between 1994 and 2010 evaluated using satellite imagery. Red-coloured areas indicate changes in forest cover due to felling of trees infested by bark beetles.The brown square to the right indicates region’s position in the Carpathians (source: CarpathCC).

Figure 16: Vulnerability of Carpathians forests to climate change evaluated in the frame of geomor- phologic units on the basis of several indicators of climatic exposure, forest climatic sensitivity and so- cial-economic adaptive capacity (source: CarpathCC).

An extended cutting regime leads to adaptation of forest structure (source: CarpathCC Project presentation)

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FUTURE IMPERFECT