In Finland, management of biological diversity at the landscape level is complicated by the relatively small size of the holdings. To alleviate this problem, this study presents a hierarchical planning model that aims at combining spatial landscape-level ecological goals with holding-level owner-specific goals. The influence of ecological objectives extends across holding borders, but their impact is greatest in areas where they are least in conflict with the owners' goals. This feature, which results in minimum losses to individual landowners, can be called ecological efficiency. In the case study, the ecological objective was to cluster the breeding and foraging areas of flying squirrel (Pteromys volans). Other sets of objectives were related to individual holdings according to the various preferences of the forest owners. The forest plan produced by the presented planning model was compared with two other forest plans: 1) a combination of independent forest holding level plans, which were assumed to represent the outcome of the current planning tradition, and 2) an area-level plan, where the holding borders and holding-specific objectives were not taken into account. The same objective variables and objective weights were used in all plans. All the plans were produced for six planning areas (ranging from 404.6 to 984.9 ha) and 110 forest holdings (ranging from 0.6 to 449.8 ha) within these areas. The case-study results were promising: with the model presented here, the spatial structure of flying squirrel breeding and foraging areas could be improved with only minor losses in holding-level objectives. The spatial structure of the landscape after the 60-year planning period was very close to the area-level plan. This outcome was made possible by synchronizing the treatment proposals across forest-holding borders. The outcome of the model seems promising also from the practical standpoint: because the variation in the objectives of forest owners is efficiently taken into account in optimization, only rarely do the solutions suggest that the holding-level targets be compromised.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT