Economic impact of enlarging the area of protected forests in Estonia

The article deals with the economic impact of increasing strictly protected forest areas from the current 8.2% level up to 10% from the total forest area in Estonia. Whereas there is no concrete selection of areas added in the group of strictly protected forests, the impact on annual lost income due to forest management not carried out in protected forests was assessed according to two different assumptions: 1. changing the status of forests without management restrictions (formal commercial forests) into the strictly protected ones; 2. changing the status of forests with management restrictions (formal protection forests) into the strictly protected ones. Achieving the target set by the Estonian Forest Development Programme, increasing the share of strictly protected forests up to 10%, an additional 39,000 ha of forest land will be out of management. Increasing the conservation area by 1.8% by forests without management restrictions, the reduction in potential net revenue will be 2% per year. Achieving the goal by conserving the forests with management restrictions, the total income will decrease by 0.76-1.9% per year. To realize the goal set by the Estonian Forestry Development Programme until 2010 and 2020 to enlarge the protected forest area up to 10% from one side, and the current economic recession on the other side, the economic solution could be enlarging the conservation on forests with management restrictions.