Land-use plans and a change of use of forest land in the urban communes in Poland

Forests in urban communes are important landscape, natural and environmental elements. In accordance with the sustainable development concept, one has to demonstrate the care of this element of urban area. Local authorities which become an important factor in the process of land deforestation play a significant role in this issue. Having obtained adequate permissions, local authorities have to work out a land-use plan that legitimizes land deforestation. The article presents which communes have changed forest areas to the forest-free areas in their land-use plans. The research concerns Polish cities that have an administrative-legal status of urban communes. Detailed objective included the assessment of the forest land loss indicator that shows the fraction of forest land to be deforested in land-use plans with reference to the total forest land area recorded in a commune in 2012. The data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland, concerning land-use plans, deliver information about changes in the status of farm land and land deforestation. Because of the indicator development, it was possible to assess how local authorities influence the changes in forest land information sources. 43% of Polish urban communes have records indicating the necessity of deforesting the forest lands in their land-use plans. Taking into consideration the forest land loss indicator, it has to be indicated that less than 10% of urban communes were above its average value. In this group there were cities, which considerably changed their forest land area located within their administrative borders. Those communes assumed deforestation of at least 20% of forest land. This group included seven cities that constituted 23% of the researched group and less than 2.3% of all the urban communes in 2012. The research enabled to identify the urban units that considerably influence forest land. An additional conclusion is the fact that local authorities only in few cases decide to considerably decrease the forest land in their sources, bearing in mind the consequences of such changes.