European forests are affected by different disturbances. They range from pests and insect damages to megafires and transnational storm events and can have profound impacts on forest ecosystem services and livelihoods. As forest disturbance regimes have intensified during the last decades, making forests more resilient has gained in importance. Experiences from both practice and science on how to best cope with risk and respond to disturbance events are crucial for developing and improving response strategies in policymaking and practical management.
The project SUstaining and Enhancing REsilience of European Forests (short: SURE) tackles these challenges by fostering cross-border exchange and highlighting best practices. Coordinated by European Forest Institute’s Bonn Office and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, SURE is aiming at enhancing forest resilience and addressing disturbance related risks as an integral part of sustainable forest management through facilitating networking, learning and capacity building. It enables the ‘EFI Resilience Programme’ to establish a ‘European Forest Risk Facility Secretariat’ in its new premises in Bonn, Germany with the goal to facilitate a structured transnational science-policy-practice dialogue.
SURE has three main working objectives:
1. To produce systematic cross-disciplinary scientific assessments to support both practical management and policy development to enhance the resilience of European forests. This includes the analysis of existing experiences; lessons learned and best practice cases for enhancing resilience and efficient risk management as well as information on how to reduce harmful impacts of disturbances.
2. To facilitate international networking of practitioners, scientists and policy makers concerned with forest risks, their prevention and risk responses and to enhance their capacities to mitigate and manage forest related risks and to increase forest resilience. This includes networking activities and events as well as fast track sharing of experiences and knowledge during forest related risks.
3. To synthesize both practical experience and scientific knowledge into practical guidelines and policy recommendations, and to conduct targeted communication and dissemination activities that internationally communicate knowledge and experiences related to forest resilience, forest risk mitigation and forest risk management for specific target groups.
To facilitate the network activities and share training materials and other resources, SURE utilizes the RISKPlatform, a virtual communication tool for the European Forest Risk community. It aims to connect practitioners, academia and public stakeholders and initiates the discussion of risk-related topics and the exchange of best practices. Furthermore, members of the network can share documents, information on recent publications and events in a multidirectional way.
More info: http://sure.efi.int/
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