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Europe’s primary forests: What to protect? What to restore?Figure 1 – Primary forests are crucial for biodiversity conservation, and store high quantities of carbon in biomass, therefore helping to mitigate climate change. Credits: Tzvetan Zlatanov.

Europe’s primary forests: What to protect? What to restore?

Published September 16, 2020 by Marcus Lindner

First international assessment of the protection state of mostly ‘untouched’ forests in Europe

Halle/Berlin. An expansion of the protected areas by only about 1% would sufficiently protect most remaining primary forests in Europe. This is one of the main results of the study on Protection gaps and restoration opportunities for primary forests in Europe conducted by an international team led by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). The study, published in the paper Diversity and Distribution, is the first assessment of the conservation status of Europe’s primary forests. It identifies protection gaps and areas with restoration needs to reach conservation targets. In addition, it provides valuable information how to implement the new EU Biodiversity Strategy.

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Enhancing resilience of forests to disturbances – why networks are essential. Day 1 of the SURE conference.

Published September 9, 2020 by Cecilia Fraccaroli

“Collaboration is key to enhance forest resilience.” This was the opening message given by Marcus Lindner (project coordinator of SURE) when introducing the SURE conference and the European Forest Risk Facility on the 26th of August. During this first day, more than 70 participants joined the conference, from 25 different countries, representing science, practice and policy. Seven presenters from the European Forest Risk Facility network reflected upon the significance of collaboration highlighting the importance of immediate response, exchange of experts, prevention, networking, and media interaction to raise public awareness. The whole conference was supported by the graphic reporting of Alex Giurca who combined the skills of a note taker and artist to provide a visual and captivating representation of the conference. Such tools are a creative and immediate support to decision making providing an illustration and key messages of complex presentations and discussions.

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Stadtwälder als “natürliche Problemlöser”?

Stadtwälder als “natürliche Problemlöser”?

Published September 3, 2020 by Gesche Schifferdecker

Gelsenkirchen ist Fallstudie in grossem europäisch-chinesischem Forschungsprojekt koordiniert von EFI

Was hat Gelsenkirchen mit der chinesischen Stadt Huaibei zu tun? Auf den ersten Blick nicht viel. Dennoch wurden beide Städte – zusammen mit u.a. Barcelona und Krakau, Hongkong und Peking – als “Fallstudien-Städte” für CLEARING HOUSE, das erste europäisch-chinesische Forschungsprojekt zu urbanen Wäldern ausgewählt. Und dies aus gutem Grund: Die ausgesuchten Städte sind mit besonderen Herausforderungen konfrontiert, die teilweise auf alle zutreffen, teilweise regional-spezifisch sind: von Umweltbelastungen zu hohen Arbeitslosenquoten, von massivem industriellem Wachstum zu Chancen und Schwierigkeiten, die Migration mit sich bringt. Gemeinsam haben alle diese Städte, dass stadtnahe und städtische Wälder sowie Parks und Bäume in öffentlichen und privaten Räumen eine wichtige Rolle spielen, wenn wir den ökologischen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Herausforderungen begegnen wollen. Urbane Wälder erhöhen unser Wohlbefinden, sind Lebensraum für viele verschiedene Arten und wirken negativen Klimaentwicklungen wie Hitzeinseln entgegen, indem sie im heissen Sommer Schatten spenden.

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“We want to encourage colleagues from abroad to visit Spain’s marteloscopes” – interview with David Lasala and Lidón Martínez

“We want to encourage colleagues from abroad to visit Spain’s marteloscopes” – interview with David Lasala and Lidón Martínez

Published September 1, 2020 by Rosa Castañeda

David Lasala is currently the coordinator of the Forest Resource Mobilization area at Agresta and is a member of the expert tree-markers team. Lidón Martínez works in the Forestry Policy and Natural Heritage area at the Forestry Department in Castilla y León. They have been leading the recent Spanish initiative of re-measuring the already existing five marteloscope sites to integrate them into the INTEGRATE marteloscope network, a network of more than 100 demonstration sites established all over Europe. They have also made the training software more accessible to local foresters by translating it into Spanish.

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“The Integrate approach allows us to improve the efficiency of forests to deliver ecosystem services” – interview with Enrico Pompei

“The Integrate approach allows us to improve the efficiency of forests to deliver ecosystem services” – interview with Enrico Pompei

Published August 24, 2020 by Gesche Schifferdecker

From the Roman Empire to present day: Italy looks back at a long history of cultivating land and making use of forest products. With Enrico Pompei, Director of National and International Forestry Policies of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies we discussed current targets and challenges of forest management in Italy as well as advantages of collaboration and exchange of experiences between different stakeholders involved in the field of forest decision making from local to European level.

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Neue Perspektiven für Wald- und Feuermanagement im Klimawandel

Neue Perspektiven für Wald- und Feuermanagement im Klimawandel

Published August 20, 2020 by Maria Schlossmacher

“Waldbrand-Klimawandel-Resilienz”. Dreijähriges Verbundprojekt zwischen EFI und FVA offiziell gestartet.

Der Sommer ist brandgefährlich – für die Wälder. Wenn es brennt, bekommt die Thematik viel Aufmerksamkeit. Eventuell kommen Löschflugzeuge zum Einsatz, und auch die Feuerwehren stehen vor massiven Herausforderungen, die Flammen einzudämmen.

Dabei (zu) wenig im Fokus stehen das aktive Feuermanagement und die Diskussion über präventive Maßnahmen, um die Ausbreitung der Feuer möglichst kontrollieren zu können. Und genau da setzt das vom Waldklimafond der Bundesregierung geförderte Projekt „Waldbrand-Klimawandel-Resilienz“(kurz WKR) an.

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360-Grad-Video zeigt “wald.anders.denken.”-Projekt im Kottenforst

Published August 10, 2020 by Rosa Castañeda

Dieses 360-Grad-Video entführt den Zuschauer im Rahmen des Projekts „wald.anders.denken“ in die Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft unserer Wälder. Die Aktion schafft neue gedankliche Zugänge zum Wald, seiner nachhaltigen Bewirtschaftung und seiner globalen Bedeutung für unser Weltklima.  

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Registration open: SURE final conference: “Collaboration – key to forest disturbance management in a new decade”

Registration open: SURE final conference: “Collaboration – key to forest disturbance management in a new decade”

Published August 4, 2020 by Cecilia Fraccaroli

The European Forest Institute kindly invites you to the conference “Collaboration – key to forest disturbance management in a new decade”, taking place on 26-27 August 2020. Join the virtual conference to hear about best practice examples and lessons learned in disturbance management from Forest Risk Facility network members!

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Why a forest cannot be private – anthropological observations in the forest

Why a forest cannot be private – anthropological observations in the forest

Published July 31, 2020 by Agata Konczal

Forests are much more than trees. At EFI we think about forests as nets of connected socio-ecological systems. To have a broader picture of these networks and to understand them better it is worth sometimes to look beyond trees and pay more attention to the people in and around the forests. Anthropologists are quite useful for this task, especially because they are those who ask: Why does the forest matter?  

As an anthropologist myself, I have been guided by this question during the fieldwork and research on the perception of forests and forestry in Poland. I was interested in who is negotiating the meaning of Polish forests, and when, how and why this is taking place. By studying these negotiations one can understand better the different beliefs, values, rationales and worldviews related to forests. And it becomes clearer how these are impacting approaches to forest management and nature conservation. In my work, I have been particularly interested in examining a juxtaposition of a category of forest (level of policies and politics) and a material forest (an element of the landscape). This allowed me to use the forest for a reflection on more compounded changes within Polish society.  

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“Extreme wildfires are not new, even if they appear to be”

“Extreme wildfires are not new, even if they appear to be”

Published July 29, 2020 by Carmen Rodríguez

A Lecture on Extreme Wildfires in the European South by Paulo Fernandes as part of thePyroLife International Symposium: Towards an Integrated Fire Management

Fire has been for centuries a modeler of Mediterranean landscapes in southern Europe. Climate change as well as current trends in land use and landscape changes are triggering extreme fire activity, posing new challenges to the region. Paulo Fernandes explains which are these new challenges, and what is the way forward.

“We live with fire. But mostly, we live with the worst kind of fire” – started Paulo Fernandes, in reference to Portugal. As a professor and researcher in The University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, he knows well this kind of phenomena. Within the fire community, this “worst kind of fires” are widely known as “extreme wildfires”.

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