Data from: What data to use for forest conservation planning? A comparison of coarse open and detailed proprietary forest inventory data in Finland

The boreal region is facing intensifying resource extraction pressure, but
the lack of comprehensive biodiversity data makes operative forest
conservation planning difficult. Many countries have implemented forest
inventory schemes and are making extensive and up-to-date forest databases
increasingly available. Some of the more detailed inventory databases,
however, remain proprietary and unavailable for conservation planning.
Here, we investigate how well different open and proprietary forest
inventory data sets suit the purpose of conservation prioritization in
Finland. We also explore how much priorities are affected by using the
less accurate but open data. First, we construct a set of indices for
forest conservation value based on quantitative information commonly found
in forest inventories. These include the maturity of the trees, tree
species composition, and site fertility. Secondly, using these data and
accounting for connectivity between forest types, we investigate the
patterns in conservation priority. For prioritization, we use Zonation, a
method and software for spatial conservation prioritization. We then
validate the prioritizations by comparing them to known areas of high
conservation value. We show that the overall priority patterns are
relatively consistent across different data sources and analysis options.
However, the coarse data cannot be used to accurately identify the
high-priority areas as it misses much of the fine-scale variation in
forest structures. We conclude that, while inventory data collected for
forestry purposes may be useful for forest conservation purposes, it needs
to be detailed enough to be able to account for more fine-scaled features
of high conservation value. These results underline the importance of
making detailed inventory data publicly available. Finally, we discuss how
the prioritization methodology we used could be integrated into operative
forest management, especially in countries in the boreal zone.