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Tag: biodiversity

What if the forest could look back at you?

What if the forest could look back at you?

Published July 2, 2026 by Rahel Könen

Thoughts on forest, attention and reconnection after the project relating forests – written by Marianne Cornil

It was dusk in a Norwegian forest. The group moved slowly along a path, leading further and further in, both into the forest and into the imagination. A poem first stimulated the intellect toward a different perspective. The whispering of the trees, sounds of the underground, poetic words and dancing lights, then underground sounds shifted attention. Each step was a response to the forest; the forest responded in turn.

A masked figure appeared between the trunks, silent and still and looked at us, unfolding the stories of the forest.

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From Woodpeckers to WoodcuttersWageningen group

From Woodpeckers to Woodcutters

Published June 25, 2026 by Annabel Burg

A Wageningen University Research Visit to Sweden’s Forests

By Annabel Burg, Sietse van der Woude, Maximilian Schulte, Linus Bockenhoff, Johannes Reiche, Gert-Jan Nabuurs; and photos by Sietse van der Woude

On the morning of Sunday, we had finally arrived in Umeå. The trip had been months in the making: a research exchange between Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), woven into a packed week of field visits, industry meetings, and policy discussions stretching across the country. By the end of the week, our group of six (Gert-Jan, Maximilian, Annabel, Linus, Sietse, and Johannes) would cover roughly the length of Sweden, from the boreal forests of Umeå in the North to the mixed woodlands near Gothenburg in the South. And we exchanged on several projects where we collaborate with EFI: from Wildcard to FORWARDS and Monifun.

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When forests return: carbon gains and biodiversity trade-offsMeasurements in the forest

When forests return: carbon gains and biodiversity trade-offs

Published May 20, 2026 by Lorenzo Orzan

Blogpost by Lorenzo Orzan

Across Europe, something quiet but powerful is happening. As people leave rural areas, forests are coming back, slowly reclaiming former meadows and pastures. At first glance, this seems like good news. More forests mean more carbon stored and, potentially, more biodiversity. But is it really that simple?

In our recent study As forests reclaim the land: Latitudinal variations in carbon-biodiversity trade-offs under natural forest expansion in Italy published in Forest Ecology and Management, we followed this process from North to South, tracking how ecosystems change over time as forests naturally regenerate. By comparing sites at different stages, from open grasslands to forests up to 75 years old, we were able to reconstruct what happens when trees return.

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Rewilding cultural imaginations: Reflections from an art exhibition in the forest Exhibition in the forest

Rewilding cultural imaginations: Reflections from an art exhibition in the forest 

Published April 15, 2026 by Gesche Schifferdecker

How does rewilding speak to you? Why does it matter to you or your community? How can rewilding transform both landscapes and mindsets? 

These were the questions we asked ourselves as we started our collaborative “Rewilding through Art” initiative between the WILDCARD and the REWRITE projects. These were also the questions we put forward, to invite anyone with a story, image, or idea about rewilding to share their vision with us. Our goal? An immersive exhibition in the forest with the vision to bridge art, science, and culture. And a virtual gallery with Meander, a new magazine for bioregional culture, slow living, and regenerative futures, who became a collaborating partner along the way. 

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SimInForest Project – building an innovative approach to link marteloscope exercises to simulation models

SimInForest Project – building an innovative approach to link marteloscope exercises to simulation models

Published February 18, 2026 by amschuck
SimInForest Project – building an innovative approach to link marteloscope exercises to simulation models
The marteloscope Sailershausen 2.

Written by Andreas Schuck, Senior Researcher at the European Forest Institute

For forest managers, it is quite challenging to integrate multiple forest management objectives and increase forest resilience considering our uncertain climatic and socioeconomic future. Marteloscopes, field plots in which every tree has been mapped and measured, are a great tool for silviculture training addressing these management challenges. With the help of a software that runs on mobile devices (“I+” software package) we can perform virtual silviculture interventions directly in Marteloscopes and retrieve the results immediately. This way, training participants can observe the impact of their interventions on various ecosystem services and discuss their results and applied silvicultural practices. This training approach has become very popular in the past ten years and a large network of marteloscope sites has emerged across Europe and beyond.

However, so far quantitative analyses of marteloscope exercise results are limited to comparisons of the forest stand before and immediately after a single silvicultural intervention. Currently, potential stand evolution after a virtual thinning and potential management prescriptions are mainly discussed based on the expertise of marteloscope trainers and the participants but lack quantitative support. Here, SimInForest “Combining field exercises and simulations on marteloscopes to develop integrative and sustainable silviculture approaches” comes into play.

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Establishing a Network of Marteloscopes in Western Ukraine

Establishing a Network of Marteloscopes in Western Ukraine

Published February 10, 2026 by amschuck

Guest article by Vasyl Lavnyy and Peter Spathelf, originally written in German and published here.

One of the central tasks of forest management is deciding when, where, and what kinds of interventions are needed in a forest. But what factors should influence those decisions? 

Participants of forestry workshops often bring very different goals, motivations, and levels of experience to this question. Because of that, it is important to ask how silvicultural interventions affect various ecosystem services and the biological diversity of the forest. Marteloscopes are particularly useful for this purpose, because they allow users to make virtual interventions and immediately discuss the outcomes while standing in the forest. 

Marteloscopes aren’t just valuable for people with a solid forestry background – they are also excellent tools for students and other groups interested in forests. 

Over the last 20 years, Prof. Vasyl Lavnyy, Professor at the Ukrainian National Forestry University, has led many field trips through Ukrainian primary forests for foreign researchers and foresters from Germany, Switzerland, and France.

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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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