The study examined the legislation concerning the creation of protected forest areas and buffer zones around strictly protected forest reserves, analysed the stand characteristics and forest management parameters of forests considered to be potentially included in the buffer zone around the Krokar virgin forest remnant, and evaluated different options of the forest reserve buffer zone from the financial, nature conservation, and forest policy point of view. A review of the international and Slovenian legislation showed that all documents considered support the extension of the buffer zone around the forest reserve. The analysis related to forest management parameters showed that the most economically important forest compartments around the existing forest reserve are state-owned. To assess the options for buffer zone expansion, three variants were developed: variant 1, representing the entire forest compartments surrounding the current buffer zone, and variants 2 and 3, which represent a 100 m and 50 m strip around the existing buffer zone, respectively. The results of the economic analysis of the variants showed an increase in the loss of income due to abandoning forest management as the buffer zone area increases. The assessment of the variants and alternatives from a nature conservation and forest policy perspective, however, showed the opposite results to the economic assessment, with the variant 1 being the most suitable and variant 3 recognized as the least suitable. The overall assessment of the options and alternatives did not show a clear favourite option, but only the advantages and disadvantages of the individual alternatives were exposed. We only examined some variants of potential buffer zone expanding, thus further research is needed.
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