Connecting knowledge to action
For one semester, Simon Musin, Antoine Van Lede, Samuel Konsdorff, Louis Uytterhaegen and Tom Schriewer shared a mission: To figure out how to create a new marteloscope close to their Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech faculty in Belgium.
But how does one set-up a 1-hectare forested, monitored, and mapped site, used to train forest managers, owners or students on the intersection of biodiversity conservation and timber production?
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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.
Leave a CommentGuest 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.
Leave a CommentBlogpost 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.
Leave a CommentHigh up in the Styrian hills of Austria, at Wegscheid’s Living Lab where spruce crowns shimmer like scales in shifting light, a quiet transformation is…
Leave a CommentBürger*innen erforschen den Waldwandel – Klimawirksamkeit, Biodiversität & Wasserhaushalt Das Forschungsinstitut für Bergbaufolgelandschaften (FIB) wurde mit dem 1. Platz des „Wissen der Vielen – Forschungspreis…
Leave a CommentEs ist ein recht kühler Morgen nach Tagen brütender Hitze, als wir uns am frühen 26. Juni im Kottenforst bei Bonn versammeln. Die Luft ist…
Leave a CommentWhat comes to your mind when you think of forest science? Maybe scientists monitoring biodiversity in the forest? Or researchers projecting future scenarios? But what about social science research around forests? In our Martelkom project, we are exploring societal perceptions of forest management and the interactions between foresters and the public. To do this, we decided to conduct a nationwide survey in Germany. This cannot be too complex – right? Or can it?
You might think that creating a survey is quick and easy: just draft some questions on the topics you want to study. Yet, in our studies, we have been told to never underestimate surveys and their complexity as a data collection tool. So, when we were tasked to develop a survey on societal perceptions of forest management, we were eager to dive in. Now that the survey is sent out, we’re still surprised by how much time it took – from crafting the right questions to identifying our target group, refining wording, and selecting the best response types. But let’s break it down step by step.
Leave a CommentWer interessiert am Klima- und Umweltschutz ist und mehr über die Rolle des Waldes im Klimawandel erfahren möchte, sollte an einer unserer drei „Marteloskop“-Übungen im Bonner Kottenforst teilnehmen.
Diese “Marteloskop“-Übungen (kurzes Info-Video zu Marteloskopen hier) bieten die einmalige Gelegenheit, selbst in die Welt der Förster*innen einzutauchen und Waldmanagement im Klimawandel zu erleben – und zu diskutieren, wie man den Wald sowohl nachhaltig nutzen als auch schützen kann.
Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts „Martelkom“ lädt European Forest Institute in das Marteloskop im Bonner Kottenforst zum Austausch mit Förster:innen direkt vor Ort ein. Dafür haben wir drei Termine für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen gefunden:
Am 16. September üben wir mit Wald- und Klimaschutzinteressierte Bürger*innen von 10-14:30Uhr.
Am 23. September laden wir junge Klimaaktivist*innen um 10-14:30Uhr ein.
Am 6. Oktober möchten wir die Übung gemeinsam mit zukünftigen Lehrer*innen ebenfalls um 10-14:30Uhr durchführen.
Wo? Jägerhäuschen im Kottenforst, bei Röttgen (53125 Bonn)
Wir sind gespannt auf Ihre/Eure Perspektive! Da Plätze begrenzt sind bitte unbedingt anmelden unter hannah.ertelt(at)efi.int
Leave a CommentIn times of climate change and related global challenges, forests are both under threat and considered important allies to mitigate climate change. Demand for our forests is accordingly high, so we ask ourselves: Could Integrative Forest Management – a management method that integrates several forest ecosystem services – serve as one of the solutions? And if yes – how can we make all stakeholders concerned with forests part of this solution? What role does effective communication play in this? With the webinar “Integrative Forest Management requires integrative solutions” on 4th July organized by the Integrate Network, and hosted by the current Integrate chair, Michel Leytem (Luxembourg), we aimed at a solution-oriented discussion on tested methods and best practice approaches for overcoming silos and integrating the wide range of interests in forest ecosystems. Our panelists were Dr. Susanne Winter (WWF), Teresa Baiges (Centre de la Propietat Forestal, Catalonia), Sabrina Dietz (FACE), and Giovanni Santopuoli (Unimol). The panel was moderated by Jakob Derks (WUR, Landmax).
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