PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The project focuses on temperate broadleaved forest in northern and western Europe, using the Swedish and Belgian beech dominated forests as case study with focus on beech dominated Annex I habitats 9110, Luzulo-Fagetum beech forests, 9120 Atlantic acidophilous beech forests with Ilex and sometime also Taxus in the shrublayer) and 9130 Asperulo-Fagetum beech forests, but also including the similar Annex I habitats 9020 Fennoscandian hemiboreal natural old broad-leaved deciduous forests (Quercus, Tilia, Acer, Fraxinus or Ulmus) rich in epiphytes and 9160 Sub-Atlantic and medio-European oak or oak-hornbeam forests of the Carpinion betuli. All of these Annex I habitats have unfavourable conservation status both in Sweden and Belgium and many other parts of Europe (in continental, boreal and atlantic biogeographical regions), and face very similar challenges: * Loss of habitat – fragmentation and isolation * Lack of heterogeneity and dead wood in woodlands previously used for commercial forestry (structure, composition and functionality) * Loss of species * Lack of ambassadors and public awareness