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Abstract
In Germany approximately 17 % of the total forest area is part of the European Natura 2000
nature conservation network and designated under the FFH-Directive or the Birds Directive. The
objective is ”to maintain or restore, at favorable conservation status, natural habitats and species
of wild fauna and flora of Community interest”. While FFH-areas have been designated by the
Bundesländer for several years, management plans have only recently been formulated. Within
the research program”FFH-Impact” 2 several FFH-management plans from different
Bundesländer in Germany were analyzed with regard to the economic outcome of forest
enterprises. The most relevant restrictions on forest utilization that occur are: the conservation of
habitat trees, restrictions in the change of tree species and the preservation of mature stands. This
paper describes an approach to appraise the financial losses of forest-land owners caused by the
requirements of FFH-management plans by means of an exemplary forest enterprise and
discusses the consequences with respect to financial compensations from contract based nature
conservation. The economic valuation of the different FFH-measures was conducted according to
the capitalized earning value concept. For this an Excel-based calculation-program was further
developed. The model determines yield differentials between a reference development and the
development due to the FFH-management plan for affected areas by calculation annuities based
on a wide variety of natural and economic variables.