On April 15th and 16th 2026, 30 forest practitioners, forest owners, researchers, trainers, and students from 12 European countries gathered in southwest Germany for two intensive days dedicated to one deceptively simple question: How can we better understand the biodiversity potential of forests – in a way that supports real management decisions? The answer, or at least part…
By Silvester Boonen, with Jonas Simons, Yannick De Win and Raghav Sharma In Belgium, we say, “meten is weten”, which translates to measuring is knowing. That idea quietly guided us on a crisp January morning in the Sonian Forest, where local researchers, forest managers, and practitioners gathered for a training event organised within the context…
It was a dark and murky evening as I paved my way through Harcourt Street in Dublin. That’s when I suddenly found myself in a pub – not the kind where a lad or lass would sing a folk song – but rather a cosy, wooden, meeting room turned pub, where I’d stumble across familiar…
“Autumn arrives, and our Integrate Meeting already comes along”, opens Bernhard Wolfslehner (EFI) this year’s Integrate Network Annual Meeting with a vivid reminder of our get-together in Luxembourg, “when we were watching bats and having a drink in a cave”. As is tradition by now, around 40 Integrate Members and other colleagues from within the network and beyond gathered end of October to discuss the European state of the art of Integrative Forest Management. This year, the current Integrate chair, Georg Frank, invited members to his home country Austria to draw attention to private forest ownership and to discuss integrative case studies and local measures for biodiversity enhancement.
Close to a quiet town in Germany that borders the hilly sides of Knüll mountains and goes by the name of Schwarzenborn, the KWF (Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnik) organized once again their renowned forestry fair. As one of the largest fairs of its kind, it only occurs once every 4 years and has become…
The forest cover is ever more under pressure, a changing climate and loss of biodiversity are two ongoing crises that increasingly threaten our forests. More frequent and more intense natural disturbances, such as storms, wildfires and drought, hamper the ability of forests to deliver the wide range of ecosystem services demanded by society. To tackle…
A warm welcome to Luxembourg Despite a chilly autumn at our doorstep, on the 4th of October, we were warmly welcomed by the chair of the Integrate Network, Michel Leytem (ANF), as he opened the 9th Annual Meeting of the Integrate Network held in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. There were about 94 participants across 3 days from…
In times of climate change and related global challenges, forests are both under threat and considered important allies to mitigate climate change. Demand for our forests is accordingly high, so we ask ourselves: Could Integrative Forest Management – a management method that integrates several forest ecosystem services – serve as one of the solutions? And…