On July 3rd, nearly 200 participants gathered online to explore the relation between forest resilience and biodiversity at our Integrate webinar hosted in collaboration with TRANSFORMIT project. The aim was to better understand how diverse actors, whether in science, policy or practice, can better support forest ecosystems in coping with current and future climatic changes.
After the welcoming words of Georg Frank, chair of the Integrate Network in 2024, Marcus Lindner, Head of Resilience Programme at EFI, held a keynote speech explaining different ways of characterizing forest resilience as well as introducing diverse management practices that can help enhance it. Here he reminded us that the enhancement of forest resilience in response to climate change and increasing disturbances is not only important in forest management but also in forest value chains. Overall, many stakeholders also advocate for increasing the share of mixed species and uneven aged forests, making biodiversity at multiple levels crucial for ensuring forest resilience.
The webinar then moved into an engaging panel discussion featuring Olive Leavy, National Coordinator at Irish Forest Owners and Administrator at ProSilva Ireland, Serena Buscarini, Forester at DREAm Italia who works on LIFE GoProFor Med projects, and Jurij Diaci, Head of Chair of Silviculture at the Department of Forestry at the University of Ljubljana.
Jurij Diaci, for instance, shared some valuable insights and lessons about forest resilience based on his research on primary forests. Serena Buscarini talked about her experience applying integrative forest management approaches in the Mediterranean context, as well as shared best practices from diverse LIFE projects. As a representative of forest owners in Ireland, Olive Leavy reminded us of the financial risks forest owners face by planting a broader mix of species. Not only does this mean that adaptation measures should be better supported, but that the system in which economic return is only linked to timber production needs to shift towards financially rewarding a broader range of ecosystem services. The Q&A therefore also covered how policy and research can best support forest practitioners in improving forest resilience.
Did you miss attending the webinar? Re-watch the full discussion and Q&A here.
For a German review of the webinar, written by Philipp Matzku from Holzkurier.com – read here: