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Resilience Blog Posts

What does EFI do? A Visiting Student’s Perspective from Taiwan 

What does EFI do? A Visiting Student’s Perspective from Taiwan 

Published February 4, 2026 by Gabriela Rueda

Blogpost by Li Xin Yue

Quite often, there is a gap between forest policies developed on the national level, and the actual challenges practitioners face on the ground. This is an issue that we are also facing in Taiwan. To learn more about how other countries are dealing with the persistent disconnect between national forest policy and local realities, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education decided to fund me with an internship that allows me to travel across Europe and Asia to learn about different forest governance models.  And here I was, a master’s student at National Taiwan University, coming to Germany and visiting European Forest Institute.  

From EFI I wanted to learn how long-term scientific research can be effectively connected with policy processes and on-the-ground practice. And my exchange with the EFI researchers offered insights not only for my reporting, but also beyond the European context. 

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From pixels to pines: exploring Bulgaria’s Rhodopes ForestsExploring Bulgarian forests

From pixels to pines: exploring Bulgaria’s Rhodopes Forests

Published February 4, 2026 by Gesche Schifferdecker

#RestorationStory by Annabel Burg, Sietse van der Woude, and Niamh Kelly

It was the last day of June 2025 when our small group set out from Schiphol Airport. Traveling with us, three PhD students from Wageningen University and Research, were two colleagues: Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Professor of European Forest Resources at Wageningen University, and Thomas Groen, Associate Professor of Remote Sensing at the University of Twente. Our destination was Bulgaria – a country that, until then, most of us knew little about. We were curious, not only about its history and culture, but especially about its landscapes. Despite its modest size, Bulgaria is blessed with mountains, rivers, caves, and lakes. More than one-third of the country is covered by forests, making it one of Europe’s most densely forested and biodiverse nations.

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Where Europe could rewild: mapping the forests of the futureProforestation in Germany (photo: Gesche Schifferdecker)

Where Europe could rewild: mapping the forests of the future

Published January 26, 2026 by Gesche Schifferdecker

Across Europe, landscapes are quietly changing. Mountain farms and pastures are being abandoned, forest management is easing in some regions, and climate and policy pressures are reshaping how land is used. For some, these trends raise concerns. For others, they open a powerful question: where could nature return, at scale, if we let it?

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From Clear-Cutting to Continuity: 11th Integrate Network Annual Meeting

From Clear-Cutting to Continuity: 11th Integrate Network Annual Meeting

Published January 7, 2026 by Silvester Boonen

It was a dark and murky evening as I paved my way through Harcourt Street in Dublin. That’s when I suddenly found myself in a pub – not the kind where a lad or lass would sing a folk song – but rather a cosy, wooden, meeting room turned pub, where I’d stumble across familiar forest faces. Of course, I was in the right place – the social reception of the Integrate Network Annual Meeting! Starting off with a traditional Irish dance workshop, organised by the Integrate chairs, we started our gathering with some artistic engagement and reminisced about our past meeting in Austria. Such a social reception provided fertile ground to dive into an intensive 3-day programme on “Promoting Integrative Forest Management Practices in Managed Forests through Policy, Science & Practice” – reflecting on pioneers in young forest lands and the journey of “a forest culture emerging” in Ireland!

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Breaking silos for Mediterranean landscape resilience: lessons from ResAlliance

Breaking silos for Mediterranean landscape resilience: lessons from ResAlliance

Published December 18, 2025 by ResAlliance

Resilience is more than a buzzword—it’s a shared responsibility. Explore the insights gained, the 120 good practices tackling natural disturbances, and the policy recommendations that will help to shape the future of Mediterranean farms and forests.

The ResAlliance project has come to an end after three years of work across the Mediterranean. It has been a journey that 16 partners have travelled together, and in some stretches it has not been easy. Now that the word “resilience” is in vogue, over these three years we have experienced what makes it so difficult to apply. Creating landscapes that are resilient to the disturbances influenced by climate change does not depend on a single person, association, company, ministry or government agency. Achieving resilient landscapes requires the collaboration and coordination of multiple entities at different levels.

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relating forests: Listening to the stories of European woodlands

relating forests: Listening to the stories of European woodlands

Published December 15, 2025 by Rahel Könen

By Marianne Cornil

What stories do forests tell us when we truly listen? What imaginaries emerge from the rustling of branches, from leaf-covered forest floors, from moss at the foot of ancient trees? The European project „relating forests,” co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, brought together four artists through a consortium of three organizations: TheatreFragile (Germany), NOBA – Norwegian Bio Arts Arena (Norway), and Cultures Éco-Actives (France). Together, storyteller Anne Dromzee, choreographer Rebekka Sartre and mask theater makers Luzie Ackers and Marianne Cornil explored these questions through an interdisciplinary artistic approach rooted in local ecosystems and cultural mythologies.

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Beyond timber: how experts envision the future of non-wood forest productsBerry picking (photo credit: Rainer Peltola)

Beyond timber: how experts envision the future of non-wood forest products

Published December 10, 2025 by Gesche Schifferdecker

by Gesche Schifferdecker, Jukka Tikkanen, Mikko Kurttila, and Rainer Peltola

When you explore a Finnish forest with experts like Jukka Tikkanen, Mikko Kurttila, and Rainer Peltola, you quickly realise that the forest economy is far richer than timber alone. Between the trees and under the canopy lies a quiet abundance: branches from Spruce trees, sap from birches, mushrooms, resin, berries. And now, more than ever, these non-wood forest products (NWFPs) are gaining attention in forest planning.

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