Connecting knowledge to action
As climate change intensifies across the Mediterranean, Tunisia faces growing challenges from devastating wildfires to increasingly degraded soils. But in the face of these threats, a pair of unlikely heroes is taking root: carob and fig trees.
Traditional farming systems have been developed over generations of experience. Rooted in time-tested knowledge, these systems may hold valuable solutions for modern challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.
From the Agdal system to the Mandra system, traditional practices offer insights for creating resilient agricultural landscapes. Developed over generations by local communities, these systems are not only integrated with their natural environments but also adaptable. This makes them a source of solutions to the increasingly pressing demands of climate change and other global pressures.
Leave a CommentBuried clay jar irrigation, an ancient technique, conserves water and improves crop yields in arid regions. It delivers moisture directly to roots, reducing evaporation, weed…
Jessour and Tabias are traditional systems crucial for water and soil conservation in the agricultural zones of southeastern Tunisia. These innovative techniques maximise limited water…
Leave a CommentImagine an approach that can tackle the complex and interconnected challenges we face today— commonly known as “wicked problems”. Consider sectors like water, energy, and food, traditionally, these sectors have been treated in isolation, leading to fragmented decision-making and unintended consequences. Take, for example, the issue of water scarcity, which directly impacts agricultural productivity, subsequently affecting our food security. On the other end of the spectrum, consider energy production, which often demands significant water consumption, creating potential conflicts between allocating water for energy generation and meeting agricultural needs.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the nexus approach as a framework for addressing those wicked problems that defy traditional, siloed solutions. The nexus approach embraces a systems-thinking perspective, recognizing that the actions we take within one sector can have ripple effects across other sectors. It is a call to move beyond the confines of siloed thinking.
Despite its promising potential, the nexus approach has not been widely implemented in policy or practice. This realization propelled our investigation into the challenges surrounding the application of integrative approaches, such as the nexus approach, with a special focus on how international organizations embrace them. As a collaborative effort between researchers from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), the European Forest Institute (EFI) Forest Policy Research Network (FPRN), University College London, and the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), we were interested in exploring what the “street-level bureaucracy” concept means for the nexus approach. We are thrilled to announce that our recent paper, titled: ‘The mirage of integration: Taking a street-level perspective on the nexus approach‘ encapsulates some of our findings and insights from this work.
Leave a CommentThe bioeconomy is not simply a niche topic for experts. It concerns us all. There is no silver bullet that will solve all our societal and environmental problems. Just like with any ambitious paradigm shift, it requires broad societal engagement, open debates and critical (and most often difficult) discussions. But we think it is all worth it, and that is why we, together with researchers from Freiburg University and the University of Padova, developed an online course on how a circular bioeconomy could aid sustainability and help to face multiple simultaneous challenges related to the environment: the threat of climate change, resource depletion, population growth, and overconsumption.
Bioeconomy is a living concept. Discourses evolve. Opinions and visions of what a better future ought to look like shift. Indeed, the bioeconomy offers a unique opportunity to reshape our current production and consumption pathways, break free from our fossil-dependency, and co-create a truly innovative, sustainable and inclusive economy that works for all. But in order for this to happen, we need broad international involvement, we need to forge innovative inter-sectoral cooperation networks, we need unbiased and fact-based communication and we need to have critical debates about the meaning of sustainability in the bioeconomy context. But most importantly, we need to educate the bioeconomy leaders of tomorrow.
Leave a CommentPlanting trees is a longstanding traditional urban planning approach for improving liveability in cities. Dating back from the earliest urban societies such as the Roman Empire, urban planners have applied trees for bringing shade, mitigating temperature, rainfall and wind, and providing food and fodder for animals. Providing urban trees, parks and urban forests is probably one of the earliest applications of what is now termed “nature-based solutions”. Nature-based solutions are defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”.
Gastbeitrag von Hans von der Goltz
Der Wald muss für Eigentümer und Gesellschaft wirtschaftliche, ökologische und soziale Funktionen erfüllen. Wir brauchen einen stabilen Wald und seine Funktionen zum Überleben.
Die Stürme der letzten Jahre, vor allem aber der Jahrhundertsommer 2018 werden insbesondere in den ohnehin schon trockeneren Gebieten Deutschlands zu Auflösungstendenzen des Waldes führen. Seine Wirtschaftsfunktion für die Forst- und Holzwirtschaft mit 1,1 Mio. Beschäftigten, die bisher fast makellose ökologische Vorbildfunktion des naturnähesten bewirtschafteten Ökosystems Wald und die für die Gesellschaft so wichtigen Erholungs- und Trinkwasserschutzfunktionen werden Schaden nehmen.
Die Nachhaltigkeit unseres Waldes ist in Gefahr.
Was bedeutet Resilienz, wie sieht der Wald in 100 Jahren aus und wann ist ein Baum eigentlich so richtig alt? Diese und mehr Fragen beantwortete Georg Winkel Mitte Mai in einem Interview im WDR 5. In dem Interview mit Moderator Jürgen Wiebicke erzählt der Leiter des Resilience Programmes des European Forest Institute (EFI) nicht nur von seinem (neuen) Lieblingswald in Oberwinter mit den alten Bäumen und der fast schon romantischen Atmosphäre, sondern auch von den Konsequenzen des Klimawandels auf europäische Wälder und diskutiert darüber, wie man den ökonomischen Wert des Waldes bemessen kann.
Leave a CommentWhat do we mean when we talk about forest policy and governance? We also mean resilience. The Second International Forest Policy Meeting has presented it quite clearly.
More than hundred participants from 20 countries attended the Second International Forest Policy Meeting which took place in Wageningen between 11th and 13th of April. During the event, participants discussed four main themes: 1. Forest governance, 2. International policy&politics, 3. Community&society, and 4. Conflict&control. They could undeniably experience that forest policy is way more than the actions of powerful actors operated within an institutional structure and enhanced by bureaucracy.
