Ireland has achieved a lot over the last 100 years in reversing the trend of low forest cover. Forests and trees are slowly returning with current levels reaching just over 11% today. Although the national forest area is low by European standards it is still higher than it has ever been for over 350 years. Since...
The European Integrate Network jointly provided input to the public consultation process on the new EU Forest Strategy. The statement was adopted by the member country representatives at the meeting of the European Integrate Network that took place virtually on the 30th of March 2021. Please check out the document here.
Slovenian forestry is known for its management practices which promote natural forest structures, natural regeneration and forest stand development through mimicking natural processes and small-scale disturbances. This, commonly named the “close-to-nature” management approach, integrates ecosystem requirements into sustainable forest management. One of its main goals is biological diversity preservation as an aspect of Slovenian wildlife management. Being part of forest management, both aim to preserve habitats and favourable conservation status of many species. This also includes species that are endangered, vulnerable, or rare on the European...
Whether it be a huge European bison or an obscure saproxylic beetle, all forest species have specific and unique requirements for conservation. While some may thrive in wood production forests with integrated conservation strategies, others may require segregated forests with little or no intervention. On the 28th of September, the European Network Integrate sought to progress the discussion of these highly debated questions during its sixth meeting titled:...
On 24 June, the Integrate Network facilitated by the European Forest Institute organised the first Integrate Webinar. The webinar focused on the European Green Deal and its impacts on forest management and protection in Europe, with a special focus on the integration of biodiversity conservation into sustainable forest management – which is the main focus...
While the discussion on the European Green Deal has been unexpectedly intertwined with the planning of the Green Recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, biodiversity conservation and its reconciliation with sustainable forest use is again in the centre of attention of the decision-makers, scientists and the broad society. Again? Or should we rather say – still?
Integrated forest management (IFM) can help reconcile critical trade-offs between goals in forest management, such as nature conservation and biomass production. The challenge of IFM is dealing with these trade-offs at the level of practical forest management, such as striving for compromises between biomass extraction and habitat retention. With this background in mind, the paper...
