LEARNFORCLIMATE

Photo: Paweł Fabijański

LEARNFORCLIMATE - Learning to realize multiple forest policy objectives under climate-related stress and disturbances, is supported under the umbrella of the ERA-NET Cofund ForestValue. ForestValue has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 773324.

• Read more on the LEARNFORCLIMATE project page

Academic Partners:

Luleå University of Technology (SWEDEN)

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SWEDEN)

Forest & Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg (GERMANY)

European Forest Institute Bonn (GERMANY)

IFiS PAN Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Polish Academy of Sciences (POLAND)

University of Agriculture in Krakow (POLAND)

University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources (SLOVENIA)

About the project

LEARNFORCLIMATE addresses the urgent need to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting multifunctional management of forests in times of rapid socio-ecological change. The aim is to support learning that enables concurrent achievement of multiple forest related objectives while responding to climate change related stress and disturbances. Previous research highlights goal conflicts between biodiversity-, climate-, and forest policy objectives, and new ways to handle goal conflicts and promote synergies are called for. Learning, understood as changes in key actors' beliefs and behaviour, is key to handling the combined pressures of these challenges. Climate related disturbances and stress, such as droughts, fires and storms, can be disastrous but they can also open opportunities for learning and change. However, the knowledge about the preconditions and outcomes of such learning processes is limited. LEARNFORCLIMATE develops innovative methods for collaborative science-, practice-and policy learning. The project investigates the connections between disturbances and stress, policy change, forest owners’ and managers’ behavioural responses, and ecosystem services outcomes. An interdisciplinary team of social and natural scientists in four European countries apply an integrated, cross-country comparative and transdisciplinary research approach in collaboration with key actors in each country. LEARNFORCLIMATE identifies factors enabling and constraining learning and goal- achievement; develops innovative methods for promoting learning; and provides decision support and policy recommendations on how to realize multiple objectives and SDGs under climate related stress and disturbance.

Photo: Staffan Westerlund

Work Packages

More profound knowledge about the preconditions, mechanisms and outcomes of learning on the policy- and forest management level is needed to achieve stipulated goals and targets. Learning processes must build on science-based knowledge about what constitutes optimal use of forests and their ecosystem services in the long term. Consequently, a holistic and integrated research approach is needed to explore the linkages between policy goals and instruments, behavioural responses, and ecosystem outcomes in integrated socio-ecological systems.

LEARNFORCLIMATE addresses the gaps and needs outlined above through four interrelated work packages (WPs). WP1 is strictly for internal administration and coordination, but the other WPs will answer the following overarching research questions:

i) What are the preconditions for national level policy learning, and how do climate change-related stress and disturbance influence policy change and the achievement of multiple forest related policy objectives and SDGs? (WP2)

ii) How do forest owners and managers respond to multiple policy objectives, instruments and ecosystem services demands in the context of climate related stress and disturbance? (WP3)

iii) How do alternative policy objectives, instruments and different behavioural responses influence long term forest ecosystem services and biodiversity outcomes, particularly trade-offs and synergies between different objectives and SDGs? (WP4)

iv) What policy instruments, scientific evidence, and forms of science-practice-policy collaboration support learning promoting sustainable and multifunctional forest management and goal achievement under climate related stress and disturbance? (WP5)

Work package 2

WP2 is lead by professor Annica Sandström (LTU Sweden) and co-lead by associate professor Krzysztof Niedziałkowski (IFiS Poland). The objective of WP2 is to identify the preconditions for forest-related policy learning, policy change and policy goal achievement under climate change related stress and disturbance. The research will identify relevant national policy objectives and instruments, explore and explain policy learning among national advocacy coalitions, and analyse how their learning affects integration of policy objectives and goal achievement including the SDGs. Using a comparative and longitudinal approach, advocacy coalitions' and national policies’ responses to climate related stress and disturbances will be analysed in all participating countries (DE, PL, SE, SI). Particular attention is paid to the enabling and disabling factors of governance system characteristics, including: i) conflict and collaboration between advocacy coalitions; ii) venues for interaction and knowledge exchange; iii) access and quality of scientific information; and iv) behaviour of key actors/organizations, i.e. policy brokers, facilitating integrated solutions to multifunctional forest governance.

Work package 3

WP3 is led by prof. Špela Pezdevšek Malovrh, PhD UL(BF) and co-led by Bernhard Wolfslehner, PhD (EFI). It has two main objectives. The first objective is to investigate how forest owners' and managers understand and respond to policy, multiple ecosystem services demands, and climate related forest stress and disturbances. The second objective is to explore opportunities to support forest management adaptation and the achievement of multiple policy objectives through social and policy learning in selected regions affected by climate induced disturbances in all participating countries. WP3 will seek to answer two questions: 1) How do forest owners and managers understand and respond to multiple policy objectives, instruments, and ecosystem services demands, and climate related stress and disturbances? 2) How can policies support forest owners and managers’ learning to adapt to climate related stress and disturbances and to achieve multiple forest related objectives? WP3 consists of three different tasks. The first task identifies key drivers shaping forest management and explaining behavioural responses of private forest owners and managers under the combined influence of major forest stress and disturbances and multiple policy demands. The second task conducts a survey of forest owners’ and managers’ perceptions and behavioural responses to the combined influence of climate related stress and disturbance and multiple policy demands. The third task conducts an in-depth qualitative case study analysis to “zoom in” on selected regions in all participating countries. In-depth focus group discussions and interviews with representatives of the identified forest owner types will be used to explore how forest owners and managers deal with multiple policy- and ecosystem services demands and simultaneous climate related forest stress and disturbances; and how public policies can enhance learning, adaptation and goal achievement.

Work package 4

WP4 aims at projecting forest ecosystem services and essential biodiversity parameters (i.e. timber, carbon storage, water provisioning, deadwood, broadleaved tree abundance, etc. for habitat quality) in the participating countries, based on forest management scenarios (developed in WP3) reflecting owners/managers’ responses to different policy and disturbance scenarios. Furthermore, WP4 quantifies trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity, forest ecosystem services provision and forest related policy objectives. The results will be synthesized for decision/policy support and policy recommendations in WP5. How forests are managed is critical to the realization of synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as between different ecosystem services (Gamfeldt et al., 2013; Verkerk et al., 2014; Van der Plas et al., 2016). WP4 will thus generate science based knowledge that is urgently needed to support policy- and social learning to realize the best use of forests in a climate neutral society

Work package 5

Work Package (WP) 5 of LEARNFORCLIMATE facilitates collaborative social learning among relevant actors through joint science-practice-policy communicative action. It conducts cutting edge social science research and offers a policy-science-practice interface to promote mutual understanding of sustainable and multifunctional forest management under climate related stress and disturbances. The collaborative learning processes will involve academic (natural and social scientists) and non-academic actors such as forest owners and managers, forest industries, public authorities and policy makers, environmental and other relevant non-governmental organisations at the EU level as well as at the national and regional levels in Germany, Poland, Slovenia, and Sweden. Main research questions of WP5:

1) What are the main drivers of and barriers to social learning between non-academic and academic actors?

2) What knowledge and policy goals/instruments are perceived as legitimate and effective to achieve multiple forest related policy objectives (e.g., timber production for construction, pulp and paper and bio-energy vs. biodiversity conservation and restoration vs. climate mitigation and adaptation) under climate change related forest stress and disturbances (e.g., drought, storms, fire, bark beetles)?

3) What innovative participatory practices and policy-science-interface methods have the greatest potential to support collaborative social learning promoting sustainable and multifunctional forest management to achieve different forest policy goals under climate change related forest stress and disturbances?.

Photo: Paweł Fabijański

Social Learning Platform

Links to, and information about, the project's social learning platform will be published here in the future.

The LEARNFORCLIMATE Social Learning Platform serves to facilitate online exchange between academic (natural and social scientists) and non-academic actors (forestry, climate and biodiversity stakeholders) about climate change adaptation and mitigation in European forests. Similar to physical workshop rooms, participants can enter online rooms in the Learning Platform to attend live video calls, access texts, images, maps and audio-visual materials, fill out surveys and engage in collaborative discussions. During and beyond the project life time, the platform will also contribute to documenting and sharing research findings and stakeholders’ experience and knowledge. The LEARNFORCLIMATE Social Learning Platform is hosted by the University of Freiburg, Germany with the open source e-learning management system ILIAS. It can be accessed for free with prior registration.