Climate change: How forest owners are being helped

Global warming is forcing forest owners to adapt their forests to future climatic conditions. In the course of forest conversion, the future of the forest is to be secured with new tree species or combinations. But climate fitness is not the only goal: forests should be profitable, have a high level of biodiversity and also act as a greenhouse gas sink. How to reconcile all this is the focus of the two-year ACRP research project ManageBeech.

ManageBeech focuses, as the name suggests, on beech forests as well as spruce-fir-beech forests, since these make up about half of Austria’s forest area. The demands on the forest are manifold and partly also contradictory, such as biodiversity protection and the economic benefit. In addition, there are certain conflicts of interest, for example between forest managers, forest owners and decision makers from politics, nature conservation and economy. Therefore, the ManageBeech team wants to ensure communication with all stakeholders.

Recommendations

The ManageBeech research project has set itself the task of developing concrete recommendations for forest owners on how to convert to a climate-fit forest. Furthermore, climate goals are to be set and the recommendations are to be made as practical as possible by means of workshops and interviews in order to increase their chances of implementation.

Three steps to the goal

The research team is proceeding in three steps: First, possible future scenarios are developed and consideration is given to what will change in terms of management, further processing of the wood and preservation of biodiversity. The second step is to draw on the full body of knowledge from research findings to gain a common understanding of the impacts of different forestry practices. Finally, practical knowledge will be incorporated and recommendations will be developed in agreement with all stakeholders.

Project partners

Umweltbundesamt GmbH (project management)

E.C.O. Institut für Ökologie

Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald

Funding

Klima- und Energiefonds – ACRP13