Faced with the Climate Crisis, How Will Forest Owners and Managers Adapt?
How are Europe’s forest managers and owners adapting to climate change? INFORMA conducted a survey to find out, compiling 237 responses from eight countries: Romania, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Finland and the Republic of Moldova.
The results indicate that forest management decisions on climate change adaptation involve differences in values, beliefs,
knowledge, risk perceptions, desired objectives, issues of trust and prior experiences among forest managers. Forest owners and managers are highly aware of climate change effects on the forests they manage, and two thirds of them think forests will be significantly affected by it.
Here are some of our other main findings:
- 75% of forest managers identified forest fires as a major vulnerability in the future
- While forest managers expect a decline in forest productivity, more respondents are concerned about biodiversity loss than about timber production.
- Most forest managers believe natural regeneration will become more difficult in their region.
- About 30% of forest managers said they have changed species selection criteria to anticipate climate-change impacts, while more than half did not change the way they select the species for planting.
- Traditional mindsets, workforce shortages, training needs, bureaucracy, economic or administrative obstacles were considered some of the biggest barriers to climate adaptation.
Read the full results in our new factsheet by USV researchers Laura Bouriaud and Ramona Scriban:
