DOI: 10.5061/dryad.d9p4v
title: Data from: What data to use for forest conservation planning? A comparison of coarse open and detailed proprietary forest inventory data in Finland

description: 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.
description: z_results_coarse_data_southern_savoniaThe results contained in this data package describe the spatial conservation priorities generated by the analysis software Zonation. The analyses and the results produced are based on a set of forest conservation indices derived from freely available, but relatively coarse multi-source forest inventory data produced and distributed by the Natural Resources Institute Finland. The original publication deals with comparing prioritizations based on coarse forest inventory data to those based on more detailed data. The authors compare the results to each other and to a set of independent validation datasets and conclude that while prioritizations based on coarse data are informative on larger spatial extents, using more detailed data is superior especially in finer scales. This data package only includes results of four out of the six analysis variants used in the study, namely the ones based on the coarser forest inventory data ("coarse", "coarseCon", "coarseClass", "coarseClassCon"). The results based on the more detailed forest inventory data cannot be share due to privacy issues. Please see the original publication for instructions on how to gain access to the raw data used in the analyses.