18 Management of the Forest Biodiversity: Feasibility, Efficiency and Limits of a Contractual Regulation

Forest resources possess a unique multifunctional character. Forests offer a great variety of goods and services on a less artificial level than many other land-uses: for instance, wood, other products (e.g. berries, mushrooms and foliage), soil protection against erosion, regulation of hydraulic regimes and water quality, fixation of carbon dioxide, and making the area favourable for recreational activities. They represent potentially one of the most important terrestrial reservoirs for biological diversity. Even in regions where forests have been transformed by human activity for many decades, they still retain high levels of genetic variation (differentiation within species), in the plant and animal species which make up their ecosystems (systematic organizations of life-forms) and their ecocomplexes (interactions between ecosystems). However, most of the functions assumed by the forest, apart from wood production and some leisure activities (e.g. hunting) are not commercial transactions. Because of a lack of direction from society and lack of payment for their production, the managers of forest resources do not take these into account in their management practices. As the standardization of numerous production activities and the artificialization of natural areas have caused declines in biodiversity, society is becoming more and more interested in creating facilities for the conservation of biodiversity. This chapter aims to examine – in the case of French forest resources – how such facilities can be implemented. In the first section we briefly describe the economic, social and political context in which the conservation of the forest biodiversity is to take place. We focus on the objectives and the terms of a new form of regulation of forest resources management which has the goal of maintaining or improving biological diversity: namely, the use of contracts within a European network (‘Natura 2000’). We then present the terms and conditions of contracts aiming at defining forest management practices favourable to biodiversity. Next, we analyse their implications for the development both of the methodologies of management and of the extra costs that forest owners and managers may have to bear. In the second section we analyse in a theoretical way the conditions of the contract implementation. We base our study on the principle of joint production. When examining different initial situations we deduce the main types of contracts that it could be necessary to implement. We then concentrate on the possible application of a