In order to understand and map out the current and future ecological, socio-political and economic driving forces of integrated forest management, the INFORMAR team is conducting a case study research.
The INFORMAR team, supported by forestry experts from science and practice, preselected a list of case studies on integration of biodiversity conservation in European forest management. The cases represent a large variety of ecological, societal, economic, and political conditions present in forest management practices in Europe. The list contains sites located in 9 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland). The selection of cases has been partly supported by the Swiss research project OForest (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL). INFORMAR researchers contributed also to the OForest publication 'How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation? A view across Europe'. The contact person from WSL is Dr Frank Krumm.
The team conducted structured expert interviews with forest managers across several European countries on examples/cases of Integrated Forest Management. In each country, two interviews were conducted with (1) a national forestry expert and (2) a national nature conservation expert.
The case study research started in May 2018. The process of a data collection lasted until April 2019 and it was followed by an analysis and compilation of narrative descriptions of the case study. The findings from the interviews were presented in a research report to the INTEGRATE network in September 2019. They provided a basis for a policy-oriented discussion in the network to reflect on ways and means to support the implementation of nature conservation into sustainable forest management in Europe. The report was also used during the conference Governing and managing forests for multiple ecosystem services across the globe as a base for discussions during the 'Policy Day' and for 'science-policy-workshop'.
Currently, the team is working on a scientific publication based on the findings from the case study research.
Further information: Agata Konczal
See related news
The indomitable Galicians (January 24 2019) Blog post on the Spanish Case Studies
Integrated forest management case study: Boreal Forests (June 7 2019) Blog post on Swedish Case Studies
Opportunities and challenges for integrating nature conservation into managed forests (October 31 2019) Presentation during the Fifth Meeting of the European Network Integrate in Denmark