Connecting knowledge to action
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How can we manage our forests in the best way – both beneficial for nature and people? How can we integrate different forest functions and ecosystem services, and address trade-offs in forest management? What can we do to improve the communication and knowledge exchange between stakeholders who have “skin in the game” and potentially conflicting interests?
Leave a CommentHow to bring more than 600 policy planners, decision-makers, practitioners, researchers and urban forestry enthusiasts into the forest in times of social distancing? The first day of the Urban Forestry Days (23 – 24 March 2021) held a special highlight for the participants, who joined from over 68 countries all around the globe. The two-day collaborative event of integrated Urban Forestry activities was hosted by the European Forest Institute (EFI), the European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) and the Horizon 2020 CLEARING HOUSE project.
“Public involvement and engagement bring valuable information to decision-making processes”,
Renate Späth
After a day packed with the latest urban forestry developments, insights on integrated forest management and lively discussions about the role of urban forests for co-creating more sustainable cities, a virtual excursion brought the participants right into Kottenforst. Located in the southwest of Bonn in North Rhine-Westphalia, the 4.000 hectares peri-urban forest area serves as a stage to enjoy nature, recreate, meet people and engage in discussions. A group of urban forestry experts accompanied the visual experience. While live-commenting the virtual excursion, they shed light on environmental education, microhabitats, marteloscopes and the importance of enabling and enhancing dialogue about forests and forest policy. As part of a Q&A session, facilitator Maria Schloßmacher (EFI) encouraged participants to share their thoughts and ask questions directly to the experts.
Leave a CommentAlmost everywhere in Europe, forest biodiversity has decreased in recent decades. At the same time, the society’s expectations of the forest have increased. Therefore, many forest owners in Europe use the forest today in a way that, in addition to wood production, it also covers other demands of society. The recently published book on How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation – A view across Europe summarizes the experience gained in balancing forestry and biodiversity protection.
The parallel existence of several forms of use, as in the case of numerous for instance Swiss or German forests, is what experts call “integrated forest management”. This multifunctional management approach requires those responsible for the forest to have a lot of experience and knowledge of ecological correlations.
To collect existing knowledge and experiences, a comprehensive anthology on “How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation – A view across Europe” (free download here) has recently been published, edited by Frank Krumm and Andreas Riegling (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research/WSL) as well as Andreas Schuck (EFI). The anthology was supported by the Swiss Federal Institute for the Environment (BAFU) and the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL). It contains the expertise in integrated forest management of more than 150 forest and nature conservation experts from 20 European countries. The knowledge acquired by different European partner organizations over the past three years provides, for the first time, a Europe-wide overview of how forests are managed in such a way that they simultaneously meet at least two requirements of society. In addition to wood production and biodiversity, drinking water protection, recreation or the protection of settlements and other infrastructures against erosion and natural hazards can also be important management goals.
Leave a CommentVom 9. – 10.11.2020 wird im Rahmen des europäischen Netzwerkes INTEGRATE eine virtuelle Tagung stattfinden, an der auch das neue Buch „How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation – a view across Europe“ vorgestellt wird. Dabei werden die grundlegenden Ansätze des zukunftsweisenden Konzepts einer integrierten Waldbewirtschaftung vorgestellt. Dieses soll die Nachhaltigkeit der Waldbewirtschaftung verbessern, indem die Biodiversitätsförderung, die Holzproduktion und andere Waldleistungen aufeinander abgestimmt werden. Die Veranstaltung unter dem Titel „How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation – a view across Europe“ wird gemeinsam von der Schweiz (Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL, Bundesamt für Umwelt BAFU), von Deutschland (Bundesministerium für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung im Rahmen seines Vorsitzes der EU-Ratspräsidentschaft) und vom European Forest Institute (EFI) als internationaler Organisation ausgerichtet.
Leave a Commentein Beitrag von Hans von der Goltz
Die neuerliche Trockenheit im dritten Jahr in Folge lässt die Borkenkäfer zu Milliarden erfolgreich ihre nächsten Opfer finden. Sie und andere Schadinsekten haben leichtes Spiel mit den durch den Wassermangel schon ums Überleben kämpfenden Bäumen. Es müssen alle vom Menschen beeinflussbaren Maßnahmen konsequent ergriffen werden, um die nächste Waldgeneration stabiler zu machen gegen die Herausforderungen des Klimawandels. Der Wald muss gemischter und strukturreicher werden.
Das verhindern auf der überwiegenden Waldfläche Deutschlands zu viele Rehe, Hirsche oder anderes Schalenwild. Das Bundesjagdgesetz muss rechtlich dafür sorgen, dass der erforderliche Waldumbau gelingt. Ziel muss es sein, dass Wald und Wild in einer Balance miteinander leben und überhöhte Schalenwildbestände nicht weiter ihre eigene Lebensgrundlage zerstören. In dem aktuellen Entwurf des Bundesjagdgesetzes kann man diese Absicht zwar ansatzweise erkennen, die klare Konsequenz fehlt jedoch vollständig. In Anbetracht der besorgniserregenden deutschlandweiten Waldsituation ist die Zeit der Freiwilligkeit, der hoffnungsvollen Unverbindlichkeit, des Kniefalls vor der Jägerlobby vorbei. Das Bundesjagdgesetz (BJagdG) muss aus gesamtgesellschaftlicher Verantwortung nun wirklich klare zielorientierte Regelungen zur Waldrettung treffen.
Integrated forest management (IFM) can help reconcile critical trade-offs between goals in forest management, such as nature conservation and biomass production. The challenge of IFM is dealing with these trade-offs at the level of practical forest management, such as striving for compromises between biomass extraction and habitat retention. With this background in mind, the paper “Can nature conservation and wood production be reconciled in managed forests? A review of driving factors for integrated forest management in Europe”, which is published in the Journal of Environmental Management, reviews some of the driving factors that influence the integration of nature conservation into forest management.
Leave a Commentby Anna Żornaczuk-Łuba and Izabela Czyżyk
Do you want to see wild animals without leaving home? The Polish State Forests makes it possible.
Article 3 of the Polish Nature Conservation Act states that nature protection goals are achieved, among others, through conducting educational, information and promotional activities in the field of nature conservation. Therefore, the Polish State Forests is initiating digital activities to promote knowledge about rare species of Polish and European fauna.
A first online transmission of a bird’s nest started in 2012, as an effect of the cooperation between the State Forests and the NGO Eagle Protection Committee (Komitet Ochrony Orłów). The white-tailed sea-eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) nest, that could be observed by internet users, was watched by up to 80,000 viewers per day.
Leave a CommentPart 1. Boreal Forests
The North remembers! Or does it? Winter was coming when I traveled to Scandinavia this January to conduct interviews on integrated forest management. For those less familiar with forestry jargon, this term describes a forest management characterized at attaining multiple outputs from the same forest, sometimes even the same stand. The term is very broad and needs to be specified further before it can be applied. In the case of the INFORMAR project, on which I will write here, we assess the application of nature conservation measures into forestry.
Leave a Commentby Pavel Bednář, Andreas Schuck and Alexander Held
Risks to our forests are increasing due to climate change and its consequences. Recently, we have seen a raising number of wind storms, wildfire and bark beetle outbreaks. Thus there is a need to find feasible options to adapt forest management to such developments. Especially homogeneous coniferous forest stands both in tree species composition and age have shown to become vulnerable.
On the 25th and 26th of October 2018 Pro Silva Bohemica invited forest and nature conservation managers, researchers, forest owners and policy representatives from the Czech Republic and other European countries including Austria, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland to share their experiences on transforming pure even-aged Norway spruce stands into uneven-aged mixed forests. Around 110 participants attended the conference in Fryšava pod Žákovou horou about 2 hours’ south-east of Prague. The importance of both the topic and the workshop was underlined by the official patronage of Miroslav Toman, the Czech Minister of Agriculture.
Leave a CommentNature is the diversity of living organisms on Earth. It constitutes an essential element for human well-being and for ecosystems services (such as food production, water cycles, soil fertility).
In Europe several studies have demonstrated a steady loss of animal and plant species related to forest, caused for example by intensive land use, invasive alien species introduction, pollution and global warming (EEA short report on Biodiversity, 2008). Maintenance of biodiversity in forests will support its resilience to natural and human pressures. It contributes for example to the mitigation of raising temperatures and to food security.
I have recently been working on several mandatory and voluntary tools supporting nature conservation in forests, and I would like to introduce some of the most important here.
