New Head of Governance Programme appointed
Dr Bernhard Wolfslehner has been appointed as Head of the Governance Programme at the European Forest Institute. Dr Wolfslehner will start his 5-year term on 1 January 2022.
Bernhard has a PhD and Masters’ degree in forest sciences from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna. Since 2021 he is Team Leader of the EFI Forest Europe Team, where he is strongly engaged in scientific guidance, coordination and communication of the pan-European forest policy process.
Bernhard’s expertise and field of interest includes forest policy and governance, sustainable forest management, criteria and indicators, non-timber forest products and services, and multi-criteria decision support. Previously, he has been the Coordinator of EFI’s Forest Policy Research Network, Head of EFI’s former Regional Office EFICEEC-EFISEE, and senior researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna.
EFI’s Governance Programme conducts research on international trade, sustainable financing, land use, forest-related policies and media, focusing on critical questions related to human-forest interrelations.
The Programme aims to take a broad perspective on forest governance, looking into the interplay of different policy sectors as well as distinct governance mechanisms such as markets, rules, and participatory decision making, as well as across different countries and regions within and outside Europe. It investigates the “stewardship” of forests ranging from i) the understanding of societal values, interests and demands towards forests and ii) how these demands are translated into policy, including how decisions are made, at different levels down to iii) the “on the ground” level of implementation and impacts, where policies and governance arrangement play out in concrete actions regarding forest landscape or forest-related value chains.
