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Month: June 2018

Bark beetle outbreaks and the future of European forests

Bark beetle outbreaks and the future of European forests

Published June 29, 2018 by Agata Konczal

Discussing solutions and searching for more resilience forests

How are different European countries dealing with bark beetle outbreaks and which role do questions like sanitary cutting, monitoring systems, forest ownership, windstorms and expectations towards nature conservation play? What are the challenges regarding climate change? How do the social perception of active and inactive forest management impact forester’s activities in local forests? Which tools should be used to cope with natural disturbances and how we can educate foresters, policy makers, and other relevant stakeholders? Following the invitation of the Polish Ministry of Environment and the Polish State Forests, we discussed these and more issues in the Białowieża Forest during a working seminar of the European Network INTEGRATE from 25-27 June 2018.

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Wildfires going North!

Wildfires going North!

Published June 27, 2018 by Alexander Held

The dry weather pattern over the northern parts of Europe are more stable than we like it to be… Ireland’s Forest Service, part of the European Forest Risk Facility network, has issued a RED fire danger warning, while the UK is burning already.We are observing these conditions more often now, outside the fire prone regions of the Mediterranean. Is this a sign of things to expect under climate change scenarios?

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Deconstructing a complex future for the forest-based sector

Deconstructing a complex future for the forest-based sector

Published June 22, 2018 by Filip Aggestam

Informed decision-making requires information from both past experiences and knowledge about the future. This also applies to forest-based sector – especially when considering challenges like climate change mitigation or biodiversity conservation. While the future can be difficult to predict, one way to analyse it is to use scenario-planning methods. However, the use of scenario is also a process of priority-setting, more specifically, scenarios are a reflection of sectoral, public and other development priorities. Having this in mind, the paper Deconstructing a complex future: Scenario development and implications for the forest-based sector which is published in Forest Policy and Economics reviews how the use of scenarios may affect EU forest-related policy.

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Bonn-based green investment company planted ten millionth tree

Bonn-based green investment company planted ten millionth tree

Published June 20, 2018 by Gesche Schifferdecker

Since 1995, the Bonn-based German expert for green impact investing ForestFinance has been planting forests in the project countries Panama, Peru, Colombia and Vietnam. Now, the reforestation company has just planted its ten millionth tree.
“In 2009, we planted and celebrated our millionth tree in Panama City in the presence of the Panamanian Minister of Environmental Affairs. Today – nine years later – we have increased this number tenfold. We have achieved this together with over 19,000 customers and environmentally conscious investors,” explains Harry Assenmacher, founder of the ForestFinance Group.
Programms of afforestation to create forests increase carbon capture and carbon sequestration, and help to anthropogenically improve biodiversity.

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Neugier genügt im WDR 5 – Georg Winkel über den Wald in 100 Jahren

Neugier genügt im WDR 5 – Georg Winkel über den Wald in 100 Jahren

Published June 19, 2018 by Johanna Strieck

Was bedeutet Resilienz, wie sieht der Wald in 100 Jahren aus und wann ist ein Baum eigentlich so richtig alt? Diese und mehr Fragen beantwortete Georg Winkel Mitte Mai in einem Interview im WDR 5. In dem Interview mit Moderator Jürgen Wiebicke erzählt der Leiter des Resilience Programmes des European Forest Institute (EFI) nicht nur von seinem (neuen) Lieblingswald in Oberwinter mit den alten Bäumen und der fast schon romantischen Atmosphäre, sondern auch von den Konsequenzen des Klimawandels auf europäische Wälder und diskutiert darüber, wie man den ökonomischen Wert des Waldes bemessen kann.

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How to implement risk management in future forestry? A conference trip to Solsona, Spain

How to implement risk management in future forestry? A conference trip to Solsona, Spain

Published June 15, 2018 by Laura Nikinmaa

On 6th of June 2018, EFI Bonn’s principal scientist Marcus Lindner and I, Junior researcher Laura Nikinmaa escaped tropical Germany to cool down in the Mediterranean Solsona, Spain, and to participate in the conference “COMMUNICATING RISKS IN Decision Support Systems: from basic research to advanced decision support tools” with 30 other researchers. Hosted by the Forest Science Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), the conference was organized by the SuFoRun project and IUFRO’s Risk Analysis working group 4.04.07. The program provided plenty diverse presentations ranging from using real option analysis to deal with uncertainties to effects of bark stripping on wind resistance of Norway spruce.

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Unusual Record: UK burnt area largest in Europe – so far

Unusual Record: UK burnt area largest in Europe – so far

Published June 11, 2018 by Alexander Held

Thanks to the careful observation of colleagues at Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) we are able to report an unusual “record”: As of 11 June 2018, the largest burnt forest area in this year so far in Europe can be found in the United Kingdom. We are looking at 8049 ha of burnt area – that is more than the combined burnt area of Spain, Portugal, France and Italy together.

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Deforestation impact on local temperature

Deforestation impact on local temperature

Published June 4, 2018 by Jose Bolaños

Researchers at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (ETH) in Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany recently published their work on deforestation effects on temperature over time in Nature Climate Change. They concluded that the biogeophysical effects of historical deforestation led to significant local increases in temperature over many areas in the world.
A study published earlier this year in Nature Communications also found that forests may have an even bigger cooling effect on climate than expected.

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