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? How can we improve the communication and knowledge exchange between stakeholders who have “skin in the game” and potentially conflicting interests?
Speakers: Dr. Susanne Winter (WWF), Teresa Baiges (Centre de la Propietat Forestal, Catalonia), Sabrina Dietz (FACE- European Federation for Hunting and Conservation) and Giovanni Santopuoli (University of Molise)
Moderator: Jakob Derks (Wageningen University & Research)
The European Integrate Network acts within in the triangle of science, practice and policy. This disposition is one major strength of the Network. During its annual meetings many interesting and innovative examples were presented and visited on how close-to-nature silvicultural concepts and approaches as well as biodiversity conservation measures can be integrated in forestry practice. We have also discussed and presented new integrative and inspiring ways for forest education and training and promoted research initiatives. However, all these examples and activities have mainly been initiated and discussed within the forestry sector.
Being very aware of this, we would like to stimulate with this webinar an open dialogue and mutual learning between different interest groups. We believe that despite different priorities for how to use and protect our forests we need to collaborate more openly for finding joint and integrative solutions for guaranteeing the future provision of the wide array of requested forest ecosystem services facing challenging times of climate change and increasing threats caused by disturbances.
Webinar objective: With this webinar, we aim at providing an enabling environment for a solution-oriented discussion on tested methods and best practice approaches for overcoming silos and integrating the wide range of interests in forest ecosystems. We look forward to inviting different interest groups to exchange their perspectives, and “integrating” their perspectives into the activities of our Integrate Network. This way, we understand Integrate activities as a driver for the development of new concepts as well as a platform to discuss, monitor and improve applied approaches around truly integrative forest management.
