Old-growth forests continue to disappear in Europe despite protection commitments

superbadmin on May 11, 2023

OLd-growth forest in Romania

A new commentary published in “Science” warns of the alarming loss of old-growth forests in Europe, which continue to disappear despite protection commitments made in the EU Biodiversity Strategy. The commentary is authored by an international team of scientists, including three researchers active in SUPERB: Martin Mikoláš, Miroslav Svoboda (Czech University of Life Sciences Prague) and Bart Muys (KU Leuven).

According to the researchers, a key barrier to better protection is the incomplete identification of many old-growth forests. They argue that comprehensive mapping of old-growth forests – and an immediate moratorium on logging where these are most likely to occur – is urgently required.

Old-growth forests are under high and rising pressure in many parts of the world, including Europe. In most EU countries, very few old-growth forests remain and they are typically small and isolated. While the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 mandates their legal protection, old-growth forests loss continues unabated.

“These forests are critical for biodiversity conservation; many endangered species depend on them, including wolves, lynx and bears, and a myriad of beetles and fungi”, explains Martin Mikoláš from the Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, the lead author of the article. “They also store vast amounts of carbon, so they offer a natural solution against climate change. Despite their importance, we are currently failing to protect this natural heritage. Urgent action is required to better protect old-growth forests before it is too late.”

Regarding the implications of old-growth forest protection measures for managed forests, Prof. Bart Muys from KU Leuven added: “The objective of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 to strictly conserve all old-growth and primary forests in EU should not lead to conflicts with forests that are managed in the long term through well-defined, biodiversity-oriented, close to nature forest management with only minor interventions, such as selection forests (Plenterwälder, forêts jardinées) in the Pre-Alps, or oak forests with long rotation cycles in European lowlands, as old-growth forests are characterized by not being actively managed for a long period of time. However, non-intervention management of these forest stands, which preserves at least a portion of these forests, should be encouraged to realize their full ecological potential in exchange for compensation for providing ecosystem functions to society in lieu of timber harvesting.”

Read the full commentary.

Photo credit: Karol Kalisky, Arolla film

Answer our survey on restoration practices and help us improve forest restoration in Europe!

superbadmin on April 13, 2023

Are you active in forest restoration or were you part of any restoration actions in the past? Then you have precious knowledge to share! We at SUPERB are conducting a survey to compile a multidisciplinary knowledge base of practical restoration across Europe that will help us determine what influences success or failure in forest restoration.

We would be grateful for your participation in the survey through this link.

The survey is aimed at forest managers, restoration practitioners, and any other stakeholders involved in specific restoration projects. It seeks to understand your general knowledge about forest restoration, restoration actions, and to assess the result of your restoration activities through precise metrics.

The data from the survey, led by SUPERB partner Instituto de Ciencias Forestales (ICIFOR-INA) of CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), will be anonymised and results made publicly available to support forest managers’ decisions and improve future restoration actions.

Forest restoration is understood as any action or project that aims to improve the biodiversity, ecological integrity and provision of services in forest ecosystems, such as rewilding, reforestation, afforestation, remediation, rehabilitation, prestoration (restoration that specifically includes climate change adaptation), or any shift in direction towards a closer-to-nature forest management.

In case of any questions, please contact .

Apply to join the WSL Summer School on blue-green biodiversity!

superbadmin on April 11, 2023

The WSL Biodiversity Center and the Blue-Green Biodiversity Research Initiative are pleased to announce their upcoming “Summer school: Blue-green biodiversity. Research and practice and the interface of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems”, to be held in August 2023 in Davos, Switzerland. 

Freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems are closely interconnected but they are often studied in isolation from each other. In the context of global change, it is urgent to understand how blue (water) and green (land) ecosystems are similar or different in terms of biodiversity patterns, ecological and evolutionary processes, and their responses to global drivers. Evidence-based understanding of blue-green biodiversity is necessary to inform policies and action to halt and reverse nature loss that threatens human well-being.

The goal of the “Summer School: Blue-green biodiversity. Research and practice and the interface of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems” is to provide an in-depth understanding of the linkages between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and the interdependencies between social and ecological systems. While focusing on Swiss habitats, we will highlight how an integrated approach that considers the ecological, evolutionary, and social dimensions of blue and green ecosystems benefits the conservation, maintenance, and restoration of biodiversity. 

The program consists of lectures, field excursions, and group work led by WSL and Eawag researchers and invited speakers. State-of-the-art knowledge and approaches will be presented and discussed considering the expectations of current and future blue and green ecosystems from scientific, nature conservation, management, and socio-economic perspectives. The participants will reflect on their own scientific work with respect to other disciplinary methods and discuss possible benefits of interdisciplinary approaches in their field.

The Summer School is open to PhD students, MSc students in their last year, and PostDocs in biodiversity research and related disciplines from any country in the world. The application deadline is the 1st of May 2023.

Visit their webpage for more information.

Join our “prestoration” session at IUFRO 2024

superbadmin on April 6, 2023

At the IUFRO World Congress taking place in Stockholm in 2024, SUPERB is hosting a panel discussion and poster session on “Prestoration – combining restoration and adaptation – of European forests for people and planet”.

In our session, we will focus on bringing together major challenges: 1) the need for forest restoration for the conservation of forest biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services, and 2) the urgency of forest adaptation to climate change. 3) Furthermore, the practice side is facing diverging expectations both from policy side and society on the role of forests to protect biodiversity, adapt societies to global change and mitigate the impacts of climate change including through forest-based products. At the same time, 4) the finance sector is more than ever ready to invest into nature and green solutions, however there is large uncertainty about the quality and long-term benefits of investment opportunities, how to credit these, and how to effectively bring the large demand for investment opportunities and the widespread but dispersed need for locally-adapted prestoration (restoration combined with adaptation) actions together.
If you work on one or more of these four topics/perspectives related to forest restoration, please submit your abstract via https://iufro2024.com/call-for-congress-abstracts/ and make sure to contribute to an inspiring session!

Featured image: Prestoration planned in SUPERB’s demo in Arnsberg, Germany.

Replacing monocultures with natural forests in the Făgăraș Mountains

superbadmin on April 5, 2023

SUPERB demo area in Romania

SUBERB’s first restoration activities in Romania

More than 7,000 saplings were planted in Romania’s Upper Dâmbovița Valley this autumn as part of SUPERB. In this area, SUPERB’s partner Foundation Conservation Carpathia is gradually restoring the natural mixed forest which existed until the 1950s through ecological restoration actions replacing the spruce monoculture.

Artificial spruce monocultures have a reduced diversity of plant and animal species, are more fragile in the face of storms, snow and insect calamities and negatively influence soil structure and acidity.

“Until the 1950s, a natural mixed forest grew here, which also had fir, beech and sycamore,” said Mihai Zotta, Conservation Director of Foundation Conservation Carpathia. “After being logged, the forest was replaced by an artificial spruce monoculture for purely economic reasons. Through ecological restoration actions, we are facilitating or imitating natural processes as far as possible and taking into account the future effects of climate change. We are creating pockets of light and planting deciduous species in these areas to restore the natural, strong and biodiverse mixed forest. The gradual return of the natural forest in place of spruce monoculture is a long-term process, in successive stages that can last up to twenty years.”

The ecological restoration activities will lead to the gradual recovery of the mixed forest, specific to this region, without affecting the natural balance of the area. The process involves the spacing of deciduous tree species (beech, sycamore, rowan, elm) by removing spruce trees from around them or by creating openings in the dense spruce forest, in order to brighten the interior of these forests and create space for natural regeneration and planting of saplings.

The saplings were provided by Foundation Conservation Carpathia’s own nurseries and were produced in an organic way without the use of chemical treatments. The seed sources have also been carefully chosen and are mainly local.

The sycamore, rowan, elm and beech seeds were collected three years ago from the surrounding forests, and the fir seeds were purchased six years ago from a nearby certified seed source grown in similar mountainous conditions.

Our SUPERB demonstration area in Romania is located in the eastern Făgăraș Mountains, on the forest properties owned by Foundation Conservation Carpathia, and the project is implemented in collaboration with the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance, established by His Majesty, King Charles III.

—

This text was originally published by the Foundation Conservation Carpathia on carpathia.org.

Ash dieback and its consequences on genetic diversity

superbadmin on March 16, 2023

Check out the videos of the EUFORGEN Webinar Series

Rising temperatures across Europe, extreme weather events, higher fire risk or increased vulnerability to biotic disturbances such as pests and diseases are some of the consequences of climate change on forests. In the case of biotic outbreaks, scientists have been investigating how to make tree populations more resilient from a genetic perspective and to understand alternatives for tree conservation in case of diseases or pests.

To further explore this issue and understand today’s scientific advances, the EUFORGEN Secretariat organised in February a webinar series entitled “Biotic outbreak management of the Genetic Conservation Units Network: case study on ash dieback”, which consisted of three online sessions open to the public. The virtual sessions featured a panel of researchers and scientific experts to examine the specific problem of ash dieback in Europe from different angles.

You can find more info on the series including the videos here.

Featured image via Pixabay

Forest management and biodiversity: Postgrad course in Bialowieza reserve

superbadmin on March 13, 2023

Are you a Postgrad interested in “Forest Management and Biodiversity Across Europe”? If yes, then join this PhD training school in Bialowieza, Poland, organized by the Forestry subject area of the Euroleague of Life Science (ELLS) together with the Graduate School in Production Ecology & Resource Conservation of Wageningen University from 10-17 September 2023.

This post-graduate course aims to bring together a diverse group of lecturers and participants to study and discuss current issues in management of European forest resources.

You can register via https://www.pe-rc.nl/European_Forestry_2023

Read More

New book “Boreal Forests in the Face of Climate Change” shares insights into SUPERB demo area in Sweden

superbadmin on March 10, 2023

A new open-access, multidisciplinary book launched by Springer gathers contributions from 148 authors on current issues, paradigms and previously neglected challenges related to boreal forest management in the face of climate change. Focusing on the boreal biome as a whole, instead of specific northern countries, it incorporates a rich knowledge of accumulated past work and novel ideas driving boreal science.

The book “Boreal Forests in the Face of Climate Change: Sustainable Management” represents 94 research groups and institutions from 20 countries, including SUPERB researchers Johan Svensson and Bengt Gunnar Jonsson, from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Both are representatives of the SUPERB demo area in Sweden.

The book covers a range of topics from forest disturbances to biodiversity, resilience, restoration, monitoring, trends, challenges and forest management and society. The restoration measures and experiments undertaken at the Swedish demo in SUPERB are discussed in Chapter 18 “Ecological Restoration of the Boreal Forests in Fennoscandia”, while Chapter 19 “Boreal Forest Landscape Restoration in the Face of Extensive Forest Fragmentation and Loss” explores different approaches and definitions of restoration, such as prestoration, adopted within SUPERB.

The book is part of the Springer “Advances in Global Change Research” series and was edited by Miguel Montoro Girona, Hubert Morin, Sylvie Gauthier and Yves Bergeron. It can be downloaded for free at the Springer website.

Summer School: Adapting forests and ecosystem services to climate change

superbadmin on March 1, 2023

Join the Summer School on Modelling Assisted Migration

This Summer School will take place on 30 July – 4 August 2023 at the Forestry Training Centre Traunkirchen (BFW), Austria. The school is open to MSc, & Ph.D. students, and Post-Docs in forest research and related disciplines, and EVOLTREE will provide financial support to a limited number of candidates. Deadline for applications is 15 April!

For further in information please check out the flyer.

Read More

Investigating European forests’ vulnerability to climate change

superbadmin on February 22, 2023

New FORWARDS project will work with SUPERB to deliver science-based knowledge to guide management using the principles of climate-smart forestry, ecosystem restoration, and biodiversity conservation.

With a total budget of €14m funded by the European Commission’s HorizonEurope (plus additional funding by Switzerland and the UK) and more than 19 partners involved, the FORWARDS project (ForestWard Observatory to Secure Resilience of European Forests) will provide timely and detailed information on European forests’ vulnerability to climate change. With its activities, FORWARDS aims at supporting European forests and society to transform, adapt, and mitigate climate-induced changes.

Read More