Belarusian Polish Forest Mapping Belarusian Polish Forest Mapping

Belarusian-Polish Forest Mapping project
2.2. Wet pine-birch or birch forests
2.3. Moist mixed coniferous forests with pine and mix of other trees
2.4. Wet mixed coniferous forests with pine and mix of other trees
2.5. Boreal spruce forests on peat
3. Lowland beech forests
3.1. Acid lowland beech forests
3.2. Fertile lowland beech forests
4. Lowland oak forests and mixed broadleaved forests
4.1. Acid Sub-Atlantic and Central European oak forests and open oak forests on
potential sites of slightly wet and moist broadleaved and mixed broadleaved
forests
4.2. Sub-Atlantic and Central European oak-hornbeam forests on potential sites of
slightly wet and moist broadleaved and mixed broadleaved forests
5. Alder forests and similar swamp forests on potential sites of alder or alder-ash or wet
mixed broadleaved forests
6. Flood-plain forests
6.1. Willow-poplar forests
6.2. Elm-ash forests
6.3. Ash-alder forests
Upland and montane forests
7. Upland oak forests and mixed broadleaved forests
8. Upland and montane beech forests
8.1. Acid montane beech forests
8.2. Fertile Carpathian and Sudetian beech forests
8.3. Fertile fir forests with beech
9. Upland and lower montane coniferous forests
9.1. Lower montane spruce or spruce-fir forests
9.2. Upland mixed fir forests
10. Upland and montane riverine forests
10.1. Submontane ash forests
10.2. Montane riverine or swamp grey alder forests
11. Upper montane spruce forests
The Polish classification applied here is a generalization, which combines the syntaxonomic
units and forest site types distinguished in Poland with Forest Types for Biodiversity Assessment
(Bradshaw and Möller 2004). This enables the harmonization of data of BIFs from various
European countries. There are some differences, however. For example, in contrast to FTBA,
which combines lowland and sub montane beech forests into one category, we believe that in
Central Europe it is more appropriate to distinguish between these two forest types, but to treat
upland and montane beech forests jointly. This corresponds to Polish classifications based on
phytosociological criteria (Matuszkiewicz 2001) and forest site types (Principles of Forest
Management 2003).
2.2.2. List of BIF criteria
To assess the conservation value of forests, the criteria listed below were used. The basic criteria
(common to Poland and Belarus, as well as the other countries involved in the Forest Mapping
program) were as follows:
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1. Little or no signs of human influence.
2. Average age of stand more than X years (see Annex 2).
3. Considerable amount / long continuum of dead wood of different types, rich flora of
wood rotting fungi.