The objective of the thesis is to compare the management of urban forests in European cities included in the INTERREG URBforDAN project. We compared the following characteristics: area of urban forests, ownership of urban forests, important functions of urban forests, management and financing, and participation in urban forest management. We analysed seven management plans for urban forests that were prepared under the project. We found that the size of the urban forests concerned varies considerably (from 40 to 2151 ha). Public ownership of forests dominates, with the exception of Ljubljana's urban forests, where the share of private forests totals 82.5%. All the analysed plans address different ecosystem services of urban forests. The most significant differences between the plans are in the importance of timber production. The plans under consideration include the zoning of ecosystem services of high public interest. The zoning presents the basic orientation map for forest stakeholders and an important tool for forest management. In most cities, several actors are involved in management, the key actors include municipality and forest management professionals. For the above characteristics of urban forests, we have obtained data from the management plans, but when considering participation in urban forest management, we have also included the operative parts of the management plans in the analysis, as the strategic plans do not define participation in detail. In the analysed operative parts of the plans, stakeholder participation is emphasised in all cities.
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